It’s summertime.
I guess you probably have noticed. School is over. You have gone to the nurses office and collected the 9 million things s/he utilized, ensuring your child would be safe through each and every school day.
But now it’s done and there’s a new situation now and I seek your input to help those who may be dealing with their first summer with diabetes; or dealing with the fact that their child will have new-found freedom now that they are a year older.
In as much as we would like to keep our children in ‘a bubble’ of protection, there comes a time that they want independence to: go down the block, go to the mall, hang out at the school yard (which I always found fascinating as they would never be in the school yard one minute longer than needed during the school year–what changes that school perception every 22nd of June?), or go anywhere where they are no longer under our watchful eye.
They’re growing up.
We need, of course, to give them that freedom. But it surely is so much ‘safer’ knowing that for 8-10 hours every day they were be in the same building with those who ‘should be’ keeping an eye on them. Once those school doors swing open for the last time, your kids will be……….uhmmmmm……well where will they be?
Truth is we really don’t know. Chances are your kids will be in a list of different places during the summer for that same 8-10 hours. How do you keep track without ‘smothering them’? Please share by replying to this article so others can read ideas that might help them.
I remember when our kids were growing up that they needed to ‘check in’ during the day. What made this more palatable was that my oldest (without diabetes) had to do the same thing. They had to call in or stop in the house during certain times; first miss was a warning; second miss there was a ‘price to pay’.
Not a major price, perhaps made to stay home for the afternoon and if it continued the penalty was more severe. We did not just arbitrarily make this rule in our house, we explained to our kids that we can get more done if we were not worrying what is going on where they are. We would respect their time to be with their friends if they worked with us on making us feel better by checking in. In actuality, our kids were very good at this for the most part.
Now with cell phones, it’s even easier. Most teens have a phone and checking in should become much easier. I have to imagine that the possibility of losing one’s phone for the day would carry much weight as a punishment; hard to believe that we did not have that luxury in 1999 or even through 2002. Now phones are everywhere.
Greater freedom.
Summers ARE exciting times as we watch our kids grow-up right in front of our eyes. So let them enjoy those summer days and summer nights………but stay in touch with them…..and as the songs says; they will have (singing) “Summer love’n had me a blast”.
I am a diabetes dad.
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