Good afternoon all. I am a 30 year old step mom to 4 sisters! One of them is 8 year old Alexis and at the age of 5 she was diagnosed w/Type 1.
She has always been great about testing, her school nurse helped out a lot with that!
Now it is summer. She is still good at testing when we tell her, the problem is she has been lying. Last week she said it was 40, we quickly got up grabbed some orange juice and a candy bar, dad double checked the meter, it was 412!!!!! We had her write sentences, and explained the risks of what she was doing to herself, and that if it had been someone w/little to no experience it could have ended BAD!
Well, then she did it again, only this time at her aunt and uncle's house!
I need help in explaining to her how dangerous this is. No one yells or gets frustrated when her bs is high. We don't make it an issue. We read the meter, and then tell her what to dial her pen to.
I am new to diabetes. I have only been step mom for 2.5 years. So any advise will be greatly appreciated!
May I ask a few questions? Did she say it was at 40 when it was actually 412? Is it possible she needs glasses? Is she forbidden from having OJ or candy bars generally?
That's a very scary situation. I am sure you'll get some great advice here from T1 moms and dads.
I can understand how much distress you must be in. And more particularly as a step mom. Congratulations. You mean you are a step mom of 5 girls?? How do you do it???
It must be really hard to have a new daughter with such a big incredible awful disease!
Alexis is only 8 - does she really see the difference with 412 or maybe what she thought was 41.2?? Could be a problem? Do you really think at 8 years old she is trying to lie about her BS??? And why?
It sounds like you are doing great. I admire the help you can give to this young girl! Good luck! Be confident in her/
No she is lying. She did it when it was really 332 and said it was 101. When I asked to look at the meter she said "Well sometimes I get numbers confused", no I know her. She is an A student in math. Her eyes were just check middle of May. I did read an article that it might be she doesn't want to scare people or get in trouble with a high reading. She does NOT get punished for high reading, its fixable as long as its caught on time. I have printed out articles that inform on the risks of not taking care of bs. Her punishment is to read them and write a synopsis of what she read, so we know she knows the risks. I do want to sit down with her again tonight and figure out why. When we had a discussion last night we just got a blank stare. Its frustrating to both her dad and I. We love her to pieces and NEED her in our life!
I went through a period of lying about my blood sugars when I was about Lexi's age (I was way more deceptive; the strips we had to use in 1988 were re-readable, so I'd save ones with "good" blood sugars and swap them when I was going to be high); one day my dad caught me. Of course, as others have suggested, she could have misread the meter, but I've known lots of kids who had type 1 (through camp, etc) and many, many of them have had a similar period of lying/misreporting blood sugars.
I think my parents handled it really well when I was caught, they sat me down and explained (like you did, it sounds like) that I was only hurting myself. I stopped because I know I'd been caught. I suggest checking her meter each day (maybe after she goes to bed) to make sure what she's reporting matches what is in the meter, and not confronting her unless you see more disparities. I don't think constantly watching her will help, in the long run.
I know in my case, even though my parents never punished me for having not-perfect readings, I felt very pressured to do so. I also knew that if my blood sugar was low (or lowish) I would get to eat, whereas I had to wait if I was high. It's really hard to explain the pressure that being diabetic puts on a little kid. I don't think they really understand the difference between things like trying hard in school (which results in good grades) and managing diabetes (which results in overall better control, but still sometimes means things you can't control.
My heart goes out to both of you!
I am not a Mom of a diabetic child, but watched one grow up with my kids. Camp was the best influence he had ,good role models, learning, and having fun. She may need a bit more supervision on what her numbers mean even if she is self testing? Good luck.
No she isnt forbidden anything really. But juice brings her up pretty fast. She normally does not get juice unless she is at target or a little low. We do have the no-sugar drink mixes that she can have plenty of. The first time she lied, I believe it was to get parade candy, that I wasn't letting ANY of the girls have.
She just got an eye exam middle of May and is at 20/20.
I love this little girl, and I just want her to know even though she has this disease she can lead a pretty normal life, as long as she stays on top of the bs, and corrects!
We have been looking at the meter now every time she checks. My whole concern is when she stays the night somewhere. She has friends who want her to sleep over, but Im too scared to let that happen now. I dont want her missing out on a childhood because of this! Id like to do camps, but we are pretty low income, and the ones I have researched we cant afford.
I had severe asthma as a child and benefited from asthma camp! I would love to send her to camp to get more informed and get to know other kids who have diabetes.
I was really hoping it wasn't an issue of total deception. It sounds like those little girls are lucky to have you! I send you all the hugs you can stand.
I was pretty much an only child, I was very deceitful! My mom is even surprised that even though they didnt come from me, they all are little versions of me. They will all be in HS together too! Twin 10 year old Brianna and Paige, Lexi will be 9, and Sierra is 7! The baby in the profile pic is actually mine with the girls father. She is only 1.
Thank you for the hugs!
Im a step mom of the 4 older ones, and Caydence is my baby with the girls father. The older 4 have the same mom and dad. Mom is not in a good place right now mentally. She has issues to work out, dad has full custody and full time!
I fell in love with the girls before i fell in love w/Erick, even though that wasnt hard either!
There are moments when I feel overwhelmed, but then one of them does something so incredible that it makes every stress-full moment worth it!
I think that all of us who were diagnosed that young have lied about our BG. There is not necessarily a reason. Kind of like how my 3 y/o lies about brushing his teeth sometimes. It is just one of those things you need to accept and look out for. Explain: We need to know when your BG is high, so we can fix it and offer her water instead of juice. That's about it. Comes with the territory. Just try to remain calm and patient.
Hi Lexi's Step Mom. You've definitely come to the right place for advice. Just a few things to maybe try out or consider: 1. I have a Master's in Health Education, and in school we learned that scare tactics (like telling people you will hurt yourself in the future if you don't take care of yourself now) absolutely do not work well, and they don't work well at all for people under the age of about 25. That's because the parts of our brain that develop the ability to apply consequences of our actions to ourselves don't fully develop until your early 20s. (which is why teenagers and young adults do so many dumb, risky things!) So, while your step daughter might logically be able to understand that "not taking care of your diabetes=complications in the future," her brain isn't physically capable of actually applying that to HER OWN life. Does that make sense? So, I'd maybe take another route with her rather than trying to get her to understand the risks of her behaviors.
2. Something that can work better for kids, especially little kids, is consequences/privileges. Rather than making her read an article as a consequence, take away a privilege. If she really wants to go to spend the night at a friends house, she has to prove that she won't lie about her readings for a period of time, otherwise she can't have that privilege. Does that makes? If she really wants to drink juice or have candy, make her prove to you that she can do that responsibly by showing you that she can test and not lie for a period of time, and then she can earn that privilege.
3. Also, whether you guys or her doctors react negatively to high readings or not, kids pick up on the high=bad and low=good concept no matter what. It's just out there, and they feel it. The more you guys can use the terms "in range" and "out of range" instead of "high" and "low" and "good" the better, but it sounds like you guys are pretty good at doing this already.
4. A friend of mine who had a child who was diabetic and wasn't taking care of themselves basically took over their care until they could prove to them that they were responsible. For them, allowing their daughter her autonomy over her own diabetes care was a privilege she had to earn. Diabetes is a lot for a kid to handle, and sometimes, as a parent, they just need you (whether they put up a stink about it or not) to step in and take over for awhile. So, maybe you guys could say "it seems like you need a little extra help with managing things right now, so we are going to step in and help you until you can get back to doing it yourself." It sounds like you're already doing a lot of this, in the form of checking her readings after she tests, and I would just continue to keep that up. Once she can prove to you that she can stop lying, then she can have her more of her diabetes independence (privileges!) back.
OK, that's a lot of suggestions. Sorry! Take it or leave it, you know what's best for you and your step-daughter. Good luck, and keep up the great work you already do! D-parents are amazing!
Have you checked to see whether any of the camps in your area have scholarships? The camp I went to growing up had "camperships" and we would never have been able to afford to go without getting one. It's worth a shot. If camps aren't a feasible option, you could try getting together with other families from your local JDRF chapter. I know they do lots of meet-ups for families in our local chapter.
wow! what a tough position to be in, for both you and your stepdaughter! its got to be really hard to be diabetic at 8. i agree with supersally about using the glucose tabs or juice to treat and having the good stuff for other occasions. good luck with everything, i bet youre doing a great job!
Gosh, wait till she is a teenager and then you will find out what lying really is. Look, everyone lies. Don't you remember House? I've not had a child with diabetes, but I have two kids, one with special needs and I can tell you that we often misunderstand what we are communicating to our kids. .
So even if you think you are not yelling at her when her blood sugar is out of range, she probably feels that way. You tell her what she did was dangerous. And she feels like she disappointed you. She is 8 years old, she can figure this out. And she will lie and you need to understand this. It doesn't make her a bad child and you shouldn't punish her for it, you should work to make sure that she understands what really makes you happy and that is when she does the right thing to help take care of herself.
So here is my suggestion. Stop telling her it is dangerous and stuff like that. Instead, set up a rewards (and punishments, although I think rewards are far better), based on how well she did in taking care of herself, not what her test results are. They are what they are. If she doesn't test and you remind her and she has a normal blood sugar, then that is what is "bad." If she remembers to test and she is high or low, that is "good." Of course if she forgets to test and is high or low, she already knows that is "bad." You don't need to say a word.
What you should do is focus on the "good" and what it means to you take care of yourself. In fact, you could even stop even mentioning the "bad." And as others have mentioned, the reading, whether high, low or normal doesn't matter. Being "good" is testing and then taking an appropriate action based on the reading. So if she tests and is high, you should give her a hug and tell her she is a great daughter and if she forgets to test, you remind her and all you need to do is just look at her and she will know. Whether she tests high or low or normal isn't the point.
My daughter is 8 and I have heard the same things from other parents. I think that camp is a good idea. Like someone here said you can get financial aide from most places. I did. My daughter is going to camp Najeda in NJ at the end of this month. You can also check with your church if you belong to one and they will sometimes help. If not then how about talking to your endo? Perhaps you can ask them to have an older patient that is willing to sort of mentor her? Perhaps another idea is just taking over her treatment maybe she is just tired and needs a break. You could tell her that if she wants to do sleep overs etc then she needs to be honest about all of her sugars good or bad for a certain amount of time and then suggest that she can have a sleepover at your house as a sort of prize for doing as you asked.
OMGosh....Lexi's Step Mom, we are going through the same thing! I just posted our situation and someone suggested your thread. Have you tried anything new with her yet that has helped? Here is what our situation is :( I don't even know where to begin......
Our son was dx'd with T1 7 years ago, just after his 2nd birthday. He is still MDI, as his endo has been happy with his A1c so there has been no need to change. He started sneaking food quite awhile ago and we had multiple talks with him about just letting us know when he wants something so we can give him the insulin. We do the "free" snack option as well. The sneaking didn't stop. Then we discovered that he was lying to us about his numbers on his meter when he tested, as we took his word for the number he would tell us, not thinking we had to look at the meter every time. His numbers were actually quite high (because he had snuck something) but would tell us a number in range. The latest discovery makes me absolutely sick to my stomach and scared! He dropped fast on us yesterday while at a baseball game. I grabbed my energy drink (I know bad choice, but it was the closest thing) as he was extremely close to passing out. After a few minutes we tested him and he was 55! He then had a burger and fries and we decided to correct later and just let him come up, so after a couple hours he checked his blood sugar. 65!!!! What? How?! When we got home, we checked his bedroom and what do you know.....empty wrappers every where and his "missing" insulin pen and needles!!!! :( He is sneaking food and giving himself insulin! I'm getting sick again just writing this. We will be seeking professional help for him. We know he is only 9, but he does not seem to care/comprehend how serious this is. I'm sorry if this is hard to follow, I am such a range of emotions right now. I have no one else to talk to about this.....Thanks for listening.
Wow! Yes I would seek counseling for Lexi too if she starts to develop that behavior. We have decided to punish her for lying, she is not able to spend the night at anyone's house until we can trust her again. We have taken over her diabetic care. I have more free snack options, Im learning way more low carb options and show here how to make them. We have made it so her sisters are now on her snack schedule. I would love for her to be able to to go a camp, so she can learn and just socialize with other diabetic kids. It can't happen this year but I will be signing up for scholar ships, even though she will be on a waiting list.
I wouldnt know where to begin with words to help you other then you can always vent to me! I have big shoulders and big ears.
I did take into consideration one of the other posters comment that they just cant comprehend dangerous behavior until they are 20. So I will be doing more of a reward program, and making dad stick to the punishments! (he always gives in to his girls!)
We hope to get him into a summer camp next year too! Hope that being around other children his age with D will help him feel better about himself and so that he know it is not only him that deals with diabetes.
