What do you say to them???

My son has been intermittently high at bedtime snack lately--really high, like in the 300s. But then the next night, he'll be fine. But anyway, the other night he was very high but wanted something out of the Halloween candy bag for a snack. I said he couldn't. Being high, he was already out of sorts, but he started crying and saying again how he hates diabetes and that whoever "invented" diabetes is stupid. He is convinced that the doctors gave him diabetes because he didn't have it before he went to the hospital. He once even asked ME why I wanted him to have diabetes. So, he was crying and I was holding him and crying quietly over his shoulder so he couldn't see me. What do you say to them? How do you make it better? Can you make it better? My heart breaks into a million pieces and then, after he's in bed, I get so mad at this #%*&@#$%$!! disease. I don't want him to grow up bitter and angry, but how could he not??? I am!! How can I make him feel better about something that is so completely unfair??

 

I would have given him a piece of candy, along with some insulin. It isn't until they are older than they understand they have to wait a bit sometimes before eating.

 

I'm so sorry!! It's so hard as parents to try to explain something we don't fully understand ourselves! I think it is important for him to know that no one gave this to him. I also think that anger is okay, but to try to work through it so it doesn't become bitterness. We had our son go see a counselor to help him deal with his feelings. It's tough at this age for them to really get things like this. Our counselor had Travis keep a journal and write and draw a bunch of things. Then we had the journal for if he ever needed it again. He's never used it again, but it's there if he needs it. It really, really helped him. Like a complete turn around. So I highly recommend giving it a try if you can.

((hugs!))

 

Why not let him see you cry? Then he would know that you are going through it WITH him rather than him being alone in it.

And tell him that you are sad that he has diabetes but that together you will work it out, support each other and make it through.

 

Yeah, when he says he hates diabetes, I always tell him (but not angrily) that his dad and I do, too. We never quash his anger or sadness, but try to validate his feelings. It just breaks my heart. He's not really writing all that well yet, but the journal is a really great idea. I don't have diabetes, but I always kept a journal growing up, and it is a great outlet for feelings. I will definitely try that when he's older. Thanks!

I did give him a snack, just not the candy. Those 300s make MY stomach hurt, and I don't want to do anything that makes it worse. Especially since he's been going high after snack, too. I definitely need to pow wow with his endo doc--but that's another story!

 

Thank you for this. I had a whole dissertation written about how you have to non-chalantly just agree that D is a pain in the tush and hug them and distract them, blah blah, but honestly, I've never kept a small snack even when high. I just gave even more insulin to cover it. I felt like I bad D mom for suggesting that a small snack would be ok, then deleted the whole post, but this makes me feel better. I try to compromise too, even I see my son wants something which will make things worse, so a small snack vs the big whopper of a snack, and some distraction usually works for us.

I think it's a work in progress to be able to keep calm in these situations. I usually do keep calm, then go to the bathroom and cry a little. I don't like to show my frustration in front of my kid, not because it is wrong (it isn't, we're human and emotions are ok to show), but because he absorbs everything and thinks about all that, and I guess, in a way, I want to protect his innocent head a little bit longer.

 

Great point, and one I never considered. I just always thought it would make him feel worse and maybe scared to see his mom cry--and I don't want to lend any instability to a situation that already does upset him. He did see me cry one night when he was very low and we couldn't get him to come up (was due to very bad diarrhea.) It was 6 months ago, and he still brings it up.

I think you're very right about the going through it WITH him part. Thanks for the "aha" moment!!

 

Since he is on the pump, I definitely would have given him the candy plus what ever snack you gave him, bolused him but back the insulin off to put him at the number you like to see him at bed. It is so hard when they get upset. Hailey and I also talk about her feelings and mine about D but I follow it up by saying, everyone has something in their life. That's just the way it is.

Hang in there.

 

Damn, I know it stinks and its lousy and unfair I know this wont help much but I dont let either of my kids have candy at night before bed. We do have candy every Friday after supper but I figure that out with Stevens carb count for supper. I would just tell your son that no one else was going to be having candy at night either if you decide to have that as a rule, and make sure he knows that it has nothing to do with diabetes.

My son was diagnosed when he was very young but still gets angry when he cant have something right when he wants it but I have the same rules for both boys. I think its fair and reasonable for them both to follow at their age.

Im sorry you were both so sad

 

I agree.

mts

 

Oh gosh, now I feel bad if I made you feel bad. That was not my intention.

Anyway, at night, I play with the temp basals and give a conservative bolus, usually overriding what the pump suggests, so I do a smaller bolus and up a temp basal for a couple of hours, adding more testing in between.

BTW, I hate D.

 

It's okay! I know. It's not like I've never done it--as I said, I do give him things when I know I shouldn't, too. Just couldn't do it that night. Thanks for the advice!

 

Thank you. That brings up a whole different issue for me, how to keep things fair for my non-D kids. My other kids actually DID have candy that night. We usually try to be discrete about it, but Daniel saw. I hate denying my non-D kids things because Daniel has diabetes. But I don't want to rub things in Daniel's face either. Sounds terrible, and probably sets up a really bad habit, but I sometimes sneak things to my other kids when Daniel's not around. Or, we'll get ice cream or something if we're out and he's not with us. I always feel terrible, like I'm "cheating" on Daniel or something--but I don't want to deny "normal" pleasures to my non-D kids and have the resent Daniel. How does everyone else handle treats for their non-D kids??

 

We don't let our dd have candy when she's that high either. We just have a slightly different philosophy for dealing with it, but she is 10 which is much different, and we would tell her she could have two the next day to make up for it and would have offered her something carb free (sugar-free jell-o for example, or sugar-free gum or a couple tic-tacs) instead and that they would only get one piece and then we make sure we follow-thru. But all my kids have special needs so it's always "not fair" for one of them depending on what the circumstances are. I always point out when she's low at bedtime how she gets to have a treat and her brothers don't, and when they whine that it's not fair I remind them of the times she didn't have something that they had because of her blood sugars (or her food allergies, which is more often the problem for us). Don't feel bad for not letting him have it, that certainly isn't how the other posters meant to make you feel. We all make different decisions at different times, we all want what's best for our kids D is difficult even under the best circumstances and he's a little guy which is harder . . .

 

Sorry you're having to deal with this, it's really hard and it's not fair, and in general it sucks.

That said, I don't do anything different, honestly. The first year after dx, we did, and it was just too much, and no one was happy.

Now, we roll with it. If one kid gets something, so does the other. If we have a high, we treat it and move on. I don't want "life" to happen while we're dealing with this disease.

So, if he's 300, and wants candy, he gets candy. If he's 90 and wants candy, he gets candy. If it's 4am and I'm up checking his sugar for the seemingly millionth time that night, so be it. He's a kid, and I want him to be a kid. I'll handle the worry part.

It took us a while to get to this place where we just kind of roll with it, but IMO the sooner you take your life back, the better it is for everyone involved. Sometimes he's high, sometimes he's low, but we don't let that one reading make or break our day. Treat & move on. =)

(((hugs)))

 

This is a good question. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. With what I am about to say, I hope nobody feels judged. We all have different experiences that shape our attitudes about D. I am not trying to comment about how others deal with this. I am just explaining how we deal with it in our home.

How I help him feel better about it is by my attitude. If I have a crappy attitude about something, inevitably my kids will, too. Example: My DH HATES peas. Will not eat them, no way, no how. The kids won't eat them either. Not that they've ever tried them, but since dad says they're gross, they're convinced. If we eat something enthusiastically and say how yummy it is, the kids usually will like it.

I try to realize that when frustrations happen over D, if he didn't have D, the frustrations would be about something else. It'd be "the same amount of hard" whether he had D or not. If it's not one challenge, it's another.

The challenge is to come to accept Diabetes as a part of life. It is possible to not hate this disease. There are always hard times, stubborn highs, etc. etc. etc. but it's about how much you let it affect you. Getting angry over D won't change the fact that he has it. All it would do is use up precious emotional energy. Life is too short to spend it feeling angry. So I try to accept things as they are, and make the best of it. We all do. We have to in order to get through each day. I've found, that, at least for me, being okay with D is something I had to choose, not something that just happened to me.

So you can't really explain to a 6 year old why he has d and others don't, but he'll figure that out, in time. He will pick up on your emotions, be they good or bad (no matter how well hidden you think they are). It is by your actions and words that you are helping to shape his attitude about such an unfair disease. It is perfectly okay to let him see you cry over D challenges, IMO. But if you are able to focus more on the good things, having D might not seem so bad.

Hope this helps.

 

Your son's statements are really touching. It is sad when they say these things and I never did the right thing the first time but the next time these things came up I was a little more prepared. Its all a learning curve as horrible as it is. Tired and high blood sugar is a deadly combination, and the thing that worked the best for me was ice cold chardonnay.

 

I wholeheartedly agree.

First, let me say that I know that no matter how positive your attitude is, you're still going to have those days when you want to cry your heart out or rage against this disease. I'm not saying a positive attitude is a CURE, just a treatment, much like insulin.

My DD was very introverted at the time of her diagnosis. When I began the planning/thought process of sending her back to school with diabetes, I consciously made the decision to not let diabetes be a "private" matter. I specifically informed her teacher (who came and visited us in the hospital and was a gem for the remainder of the year) that HIPAA be damned, I wanted everyone who spent any significant amount of time with her to know about it. Not only know about it, but understand it--what lows and highs look like, how she treats them, who to call if there's an emergency, and not to be afraid to ask her questions. She was not happy about that, but went along with it when I explained that diabetes is nothing to feel shame about, and if all her friends understand, then they will all be available to help her when she needs it. She occassionally expressed a little discomfort about testing in class, but mostly the rest of that school year went by without a single hitch. This year, she started at a new school. Again I met with her counselor and sent information to each of her teachers, urging them to be open and matter-of-fact with her classmates about her condition, despite her pre-teen angst-ridden protests. Again, I refused to show an ounce of shame about anything diabetes related. And I was proven right when about a month into school, she found herself on the bus home and feeling seriously low but not quite able to gather herself enough to do anything about it. Her friends on the bus helped her test (35!)--unfortunately we forgot to clip the cap off of the cake gel in her bag and she'd eaten her other backup snack earlier that day! But because so many of her classmates were familiar with her condition, another snack was easily procured from someone else's backpack, and by the time it was time to get off the bus, she was back up to 87! She had to concede that it was good that everyone knew, and is no longer trying to be a "closet diabetic". That freedom has led to a surge in confidence, and she's gone on to start an extra curricular "anime club" at school and be awarded the 1st Chair in the flute section of the school band. I truly believe she could have never accomplished these things if I'd coddled her introverted instincts.