Coping and Selfmanagement

Diabetes makes you different, and young people do not want to be different. One of the major challenges children with diabetes face in their everyday lives is maintaining blood glucose control while playing, learning, and going out. Yet children generally do very well in coping with the daily demands of diabetes and being (a little) different.

For children, the present is what counts. For this reason it is not difficult to understand that children and adolescents with diabetes worry more about ‘going low’ than running high blood sugars. Establishing balance between high and low can be difficult; a child’s behaviour is often erratic and he/she is less adept at picking up on early signs of hyper- and hypoglycaemia. Parents, teachers and friends play an important role in helping the child feel safe and keeping the condition under control.

While being a teenager many, if not most, adolescents is marked by feelings of ambivalence, impulsiveness and mood swings. This of course has a major impact on coping with diabetes. Some studies have suggested that teenagers with diabetes are less satisfied with life and have more negative perceptions of their health, than peers without the condition.

But as you will learn from the stories provided by our youth ambassadors many strategies can help you coping with diabetes.