Children with diabetes often lash out because they feel they have no control over their lives. Everything they do is governed by their diabetes: medications, meal times, shots, blood checks, and endless visits to the doctors. A lot of a young diabetic’s freedom is taken away by the disease.

It is hard for a child with diabetes to understand why they can’t have a piece of candy when the other kids can, or why they have to be checked for sugar levels so often. Imagine how frustrated you’d be if you could not do something just because your blood sugar was too low or high. All those test and shots, it’s not fair.

Diabetes affects the mind as much as it does the body. In our family we try to give our diabetic child choices, so he feels like he has more control over his life. Simple things like letting him check his own blood sugar or picking the location for his shots. When the child gets older and more mature they can be equipped with an insulin pump, which will allow them to “dial in” a more controlled release of insulin, and it gives them more control over their diabetes.

Our child will often act up for apparently no reason. In many cases it’s just a manifestation of his frustration over his apparent lack of control over his life. We try to make him feel he does have choices. We allow him to pick movies, or we give him a choice over what we will eat for dinner. We give him healthy choices, but we let him make the final decision.

Diabetes is more than a physical disease, it impacts how your family will develop and mature. Diabetes takes control away from the individual that has the disease and it makes it more difficult for the parent of a young child inflicted with diabetes.

Structuring your parenting of your child to make them feel like they can make choices about their life, and the treatment of their diabetes, will help your child feel more empowered and in control of their life.