When anxiety gets the better of your T1D kid

Sweet Talk for Parents of Kids with Type One Diabetes

This week’s guest is a mom of a relatively newly diagnosed 10-year old girl. Mom describes her daughter Maisie as having always struggled with some anxiety — but now that diabetes is in the mix, Maisie's anxiety is higher and more dramatic — and mom is at her wit’s end.

Together, this mom and I dig into what she’s seeing with her daughter and come up with a few different strategies to help calm her very anxious daughter. First, is to take as much responsibility for diabetes off of her daughter as is possible. I name that many parents are anxious about how their kids are going to be able to do diabetes on their own one day — but that for Maisie, the focus needs to be on lowering her anxiety now, before she takes on too much responsibility. It's going to be important for tis mom to know that Maisie will be able to take this responsibility on later, but that now -- at 10 -- she should do less, not more.

We also look at some of the realities of diabetes complications and how mom’s worry about this has been part of the mix. I was able to reassure her that dire complications of diabetes are lower than people expect — which was especially important for her to hear since she works as a nurse and had seen some ugly complications with type 2 diabetes.

We talk about how mom can work with Maisie to lower her anxiety in a given moment when she’s distressed. Some of this is about strategizing with Maisie about what she might need in those moments. But some of it is about mom and dad really being in charge so that Maisie feels better contained — and less bad about herself.

Finally, we explore what it would be for this family to get some therapeutic support, the ways that Maisie is resistant to that, and the ways that mom might be able to help support that process.