Eliot LeBow - Parenting Children with Diabetes: A Guide to Understanding and Managing the Issues

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Published by Rowman & Littlefield
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Copyright 2019 by Eliot LeBow

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: LeBow, Eliot, 1971 author.

Title: Parenting children with diabetes : a guide to understanding and managing the issues / Eliot LeBow.

Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019009913 (print) | LCCN 2019011163 (ebook) | ISBN 9781538131367 (electronic) | ISBN 9781538131206 (cloth : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Diabetes in childrenPopular works. | Diabetes in childrenPatientsCare. | Parents of chronically ill children. | Diabetic children.

Classification: LCC RJ420.D5 (ebook) | LCC RJ420.D5 L39 2019 (print) | DDC 618.92/462dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019009913

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

DISCLAIMER OF MEDICAL ADVICE

All information, content, and material in Parenting Children with Diabetes are therapeutic and are not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis, and medical treatment of a qualified endocrinologist, physician, or healthcare provider. All readers of this book are responsible for their own or their childs medical care, treatment, and oversight. Before making any changes to your or your childs diabetes maintenance program, please consult with your primary physician or endocrinologist.

Should any reader have any healthcare-related questions, promptly call or consult your physician or healthcare provider. No information contained in this book should be used by any reader to disregard medical and health-related advice or provide a basis to delay consultation with a physician or a qualified healthcare provider. Eliot LeBow, LCSW, CDE, disclaims any liability based on information contained in this book.

Hi, my name is Eliot LeBow. I was diagnosed with type I diabetes in 1977 and then went on to become a diabetes-focused psychotherapist and certified diabetes educator. I would like to share with you and your family a part of my journey as well as what several of my clients have gone through while living with diabetes during childhood in order to educate others like you about what it feels like to have this disorder and what you may not understand as the parent of a child who has diabetes. I wrote this book for parents of children with diabetes and anyone who wants to gain insight into how it feels to have diabetes. I hope you learn a lot from my clients experiences, feelings, and needs as children who grew up with this condition.

I designed this book as a guide to understanding what your family member or friend who lives with diabetes goes through on a daily basis and how you can help them. Through the recounting of various events in my clients lives, I will share their feelings in the Childs Perspective sections. I will also give parental advice for how to maneuver through the challenges of raising a child with diabetes. For adults who grew up with or have diabetes, I provide insights into what you may have faced as a childand what you still may be facing on a daily basis.

Growing up is difficult for everyone, but it is especially hard for children with diabetes in a world full of instant gratification. Chocolate, hard candy, soda, cotton candy, ice cream, cake, not to mention those Reeses peanut butter cups (mmmm). Oh, and lets not forget the ice cream man: Good Humor or Mister Softee, whichever one haunts your neighborhood, with his bell ringing and the truck that sings that unmistakable tune over and over again, beckoning every child on the block to come running out to meet him to buy and enjoy his or her treat. This is the nightmare of every child with diabetesand it affects every parent of a kid living with diabetes. Relationships become strained and harder to keep intact for parents and their children due to fluctuating emotions, feelings of guilt, and other issues. Children with diabetes may feel different and isolated from their peers since they cant always eat the same things as everyone else at the same time. They may feel angry or sad, and even feel at times that it is their fault they got diabetes, as though getting it was punishment.

Oftentimes, the things we do as parents to protect our children from the dangers of the world become hurtful instead of helpful. This is especially true with children living with diabetes. Sometimes overprotecting or underprotecting while raising a child with diabetes can cause children to act out, leading to grave present and future consequences, including a wide range of physical issues and psychiatric disorders: attention deficit disorder (ADD), attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning disabilities, emotional problems, addictions, and others.