51: What to do When Those Highs Make Your Kid Sassy (and Other Important Topics)

Sweet Talk for Parents of Kids with Type One Diabetes

This week, a mom joins me in a wide-ranging conversation about the way her son can get sassy — and be difficult to parent — when his blood sugar is high. But before we ever got to that issue, we hit on a few other important topics.

First of all, this brave mom talked about how dysregulated she gets when she is following diabetes all, all, all the time. She shared that she’s made a practice of dis-connecting herself sometimes from the task of managing. Since this kind of self-care is an important message that I give in all my Sweet Talk programming, we spent a little time here, looking at how this practice evolved for her. She shared how the reflections of close and loving family members really helped her to see the ways that she was stretching herself too far and that she needed to find a way to take self-care breaks.

Then, in thinking with her about how to address the high blood sugars that are making her son so hard to parent, we took a detour to talk about disordered eating behaviors and the risk of that with T1D. It was a great opportunity to share with listeners that my next free workshop — the ever-popular Let Them Eat Cake? — focuses on this issue and is now open for registration.

Finally, we started tackling the real issue of parenting highs, talking through how you might start a conversation about this to raise your child’s awareness of what is happening in their body. I name that this is a bit of a process — not something a parent can magically expect their child to be able to do right away, but something you can help them cultivate over time. We are planting seeds in their awareness.

Listen to hear more about:

• How to think about moderate eating and teaching that to our kids
• The difficulty that some people with type 1 have in feeling full
• How to help your child pay better attention to when they feel full and creating thoughtful behaviors related to food and eating
• How to help your child gain some self-awareness about their behaviors without making them feel bad about themselves.
• How it can be helpful to talk to our children about hard topics in moments when their blood sugar is in range — and when we (and they) are calm and regulated
• How asking our kids to pay attention can help them gain insight

Mentioned in this episode:

Need help getting your kid the right snacks?

That's why I've created the Sweet Talk Snack Course. It's a free mini-course to give you 6 snack sized lessons on making sure you're giving your kid the right foods to keep them nourished and their blood sugar in check. Get it at https://diabetessweettalk.com