Is it the wiggles or a high blood sugar?
Manage episode 449730647 series 3391328
One dilemma I’ve heard from parents again and again: If my T1D kid is acting out because of a high blood sugar, how do I parent that? Do I give my kid a pass because I know that their high affects their mood? Or do I parent the behavior as though diabetes isn’t operating in the background? In this week's episode, Julie comes on the show to talk about how this issue is playing out for her 6 year old son, Ethan, when he’s at school.
It sounds like Ethan has an amazing teacher: She’s paying attention to his diabetes and wondering if his high blood sugar might correlate to some disrespectful behaviors that she’s seen. The problem is that Julie and her husband haven’t seen that same correlation at home: Although they know that their son is very wiggly, has a lot of energy, and likely has a hard time sitting still — especially in the afternoons at school — they haven’t seen disrespectfulness when his blood sugar is out of range. At the same time, when he’s high — or has a big case of the wiggles — Julie will take him for a run to help him get his energy out or bring his blood sugar down, something teachers can’t do for him at school. Whether diabetes is driving Ethan’s behavior or not, we came to the conclusion that the teachers might be overly focused on Ethan’s diabetes, giving a reason for his not-so-stellar behavior when it would be better to just treat it as a behavioral issue.
Truth be told, we really never can know how our kid’s blood sugars are affecting them. But in my experience working with T1D adults, I found that they often felt frustrated with their parents for attributing their behavior to highs when they were kids. And the reality is that we all need to strive to be our best selves, even under less than ideal circumstances. So in the show, we talk about different ways we can help our kids show up as their best, whether it’s the high blood sugar getting in their way, or just the wiggles.
Hope you enjoy the show!
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