3 Tips on Helping Your Teen with Diabetes

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Having a teenager is tough enough trying to balance an urge to care for them constantly, with wanting to give them their space and show them trust. When your teen has diabetes, it becomes that much more difficult – how can you leave them alone and trust that they'll take proper care of themselves? Especially when their self-care is that much more important than that of their peers? With a few key tips, you can learn to let go, while at the same time know that the ones you love are safe and prepared.

1. Let them be seen. Especially in the early teen years, your teenager will place a great deal of importance on body image and will seek more reassurance from their peers than from you. This is a good reason to promote healthy diet and exercise plans for the whole family rather than mentioning weight issues and body changes in your teen. Keep an eye out for potentially risky behaviour: some teens can be tempted to reduce or skip meals, or even their insulin injections in an effort to lose weight.

2. Let them be free. Try to give positive encouragement to your teen about their diabetes management. Even using terms like 'good' or 'bad' can come across as judgemental, so try to praise them freely and at the same time focus on a plan. This won't be easy, because being a teen also means being spontaneous, and diabetes can certainly discourage a lot of that spirit-freeing need. When there's a next step to plan for, the current results tend to be less important, so try to encourage them to think about 'what's next' regarding their diabetes management. With a plan in place, they can learn to follow it without much thought to it, so they can still go out and be spontaneous.

3. Let them be a boss. Have them be involved in the decision making process: when they have worked with you and their diabetes team, together you've all decided on the right goals. These goals include safe glucose levels, the right diet plan, and the right medication plan, and so then reminding them about what they helped to decide means a lot. It certainly has more impact than telling them what you think or what the doctor told them – giving them a say in their own health and then holding them to their word will go a long way.

Ultimately, there's going to come a point where you just have to let go – you can't be around your teen every minute of every day, and you have to accept that the disease really is their disease, and not yours. Sometimes being a good parent means being there for your child, and sometimes it means just being there in case they need you. Keep the lines of communication open, and when they do approach you, be supportive.

By Richard Lobbenberg, Acupuncturist and TCM Practitioner

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