I went to the UCSF Symposium this weekend and heard a lot of questions from parents as they struggle with being good parents and being good caretakers and being good diabetes nurses and good nutritionists and coaches and therapists for their kids…
I heard some questions more than others, and thought maybe you’d have more questions beyond these. If you do, please let me know!
One speaker, Bill Polonsky, gave five important general rules for parents of type one kids. I think it’s a great list so I’m re-posting it here.
- Have faith that your type one kid can live a long and healthy life. Well managed diabetes is the leading cause of NOTHING.
- Scaring your child into better management of their diabetes will not work. Forget it. It won’t. Ever.
- Develop a sense of humor about life with diabetes. Learn and accept that aggravations over diabetes will occur and get used to them!
- Have a family plan that establishes clear, meaningful, and reasonable goals for action—for everyone in the family.
- Listen to each other. Diabetes is hard on everyone and we all need to support each other.
How handy we have this March Challenge going on, isn’t it? Here’s where you can look for inspiration to ask for help in different ways—from others in your family, and of yourself.
Go for it.
