Teens who don't test

In my experience, fear is not a good motivator for teens.

When it comes to playing a game of chicken with fear and the two players are the parent and the teen… The teen is the winner.

I find non-confrontational approaches to deliver the best long term results.

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Parenting is a complicated task. So much depends on the context of the relationship. Sometimes firm discipline works but it is not without a downside. A child, especially a teenager, can resent the unilateral decision by a parent to enforce a parental decision. I think the teen can often view this as robbing them of personal autonomy, an important developmental issue.

I think the key to solving this problem in a long-term fashion is good communication in a setting where love sets the tone. I agree that using fear as a blunt tactic will likely fail. Engaging the help of a professional therapist could be useful.

That’s a tragic story, @Devildog. My heart goes out to the family as they try to pick up the pieces and move on.

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I think it’s more important to find motivation than to inspire fear. I know lots of people who don’t want to be alive. I knew teenagers without diabetes who killed themselves. Fear doesn’t help if death is the objective. Teenagers need to find a reason to live more than being told, “do this horrible thing, or a more horrible thing will happen.” For me, I hated high school, every part of it. It was the worst time of my life, and middle school was bad too, so I started to think life just sucks so what’s the point of extending it. My motivation became, “maybe college is better, just keep yourself alive long enough to go to college.” College was a million times better! The teachers were more empathetic, there was no family drama, and there were 1000s of potential friends instead of 100. Personally, I don’t think diabetic teenagers need another reason to hate life, but more a discussion of what’s important to them, what keeps them going, and more emphasis on that.

My mother relinquished all control of my diabetes when I was 12. I was not ready. She never even asked me about my numbers, but if she had, I would have exploded on her because she made it clear she couldn’t handle that level of responsibility, and if I could, at 12, she should have had some sympathy. She didn’t. I’m still very bitter about how things went down 20 years later. I prayed for someone to step in and do it for me for even a day. So, i second the opinion that it might be a good idea to take back the reins for a while.

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Dexcom? Could we get his basals set correctly and take insulin at meals? That would be a huge step forward in preventing long term complications. Hes never gonna be able to drive a car if he carries on like this. He may have lots of disability. Maybe you could send him to camp with other diabetics.