When Diabetes amplifies our children's anxiety

Sweet Talk for Parents of Kids with Type One Diabetes

We all know that transitions can be hard for kids — and adding diabetes to the mix often makes them even trickier. On today’s episode I spoke about this with Kaylor Glassman, the founder of Diabetes Support Partners and a fellow diabetes coach whose opinion I really trust. Together, we thought about what’s going on for the 5 year old son of a listener who seems to be struggling with some separation anxiety. But the issue is confused because instead of it being a straightforward nervousness about mom leaving, he’s saying that he’s worried about whether new adults are going to be able to take good enough care of his diabetes.

Kaylor started with such a good point: She noticed that mom is taking the very brave step of leaving her son with new adults in the first place, something that’s often hard for us T1D parents. And this kiddo is making it trickier, since he’s questioning whether he is T1D safe with these new adults. The tricky thing, of course, is that talking about diabetes in this way might just be a way for a child to express general nervousness. After all, they know that they will have our attention if the conversation is about T1D. But ultimately, I believe the antidote to this new anxiety is to continue to reassure this kid that he is safe. After all, this is what we want for our kids (and for ourselves!): a safety net of trusted adults that they can rely on besides mom and dad.

So what to do to help? First of all, stay the course. This mom should keep practicing leaving her son with safe adults and continue to communicate her confidence that he will be fine. Kaylor and I talk about how important it is to think about your tone as a parent, letting your child know what’s going to happen, and being attentive to their potential worry, but also leaning into the idea that everything will be alright so we don’t allow anxiety to grow. We talked through other great strategies to manage a child’s anxiety and to help them see and understand that their worries aren’t always a good predictor of what’s actually going to happen. Finally, we thought about how our own anxiety might actually be in the mix. Yes, this mom is doing an amazing and brave thing in dropping her T1D kid off with new people, but often we adults have to talk through and process these new steps for ourselves and our little ones pick up on our energy. As hard as it can be, we have to try to protect our kids from our own worries.

Listen to hear more about:

*Timing a conversation with your child about a new experience so they have less time to worry

*Why it might be important to circle back to talk to a child after they’ve done something that makes them nervous

*How to strike a balance between validating our kid’s experience and keeping their anxiety small

*Ways we can protect kids from our own anxiety

Hope you enjoy the show!