For Teenagers

By Scott Coulter I don't know how many teenage readers are out there — I know that isn't the majority of who makes up this Web site's readership. But today, I'm writing for you. I've been wracking my brain trying to come up with something, ANYthing, that I could fill my space with this week, and after reading through some old writing from my own adolescence, I finally stumbled upon it. I'm going to talk about living with diabetes through the teenage years. Adolescence is a rocky, unstable period of time for everyone. It's unstable for the adolescent, for the family of the adolescent, for the teachers of the adolescent, for…well, you get the point. It's a time of massive change and transition, a time of individuation and separation. It can't help but be a bit bumpy. And that can be frustrating for everyone involved. Diabetes complicates the matter considerably. Think about this idea of "individuation." It means adolescents are separating from parental control to self-control. This is a good thing, something that NEEDS to happen. But that doesn't make it any less scary. It's hard enough for parents to let go of managing their kid's homework time. But if the subject in question is diabetes, it can literally be life or death decisions we're talking about. The full extent of this discussion could probably take up an entire book, so a 900-word blog entry won't cover it. But I thought I would share a few of my own observations both as someone who went through the transi...
Source: Diabetes Self-Management - Category: Diabetes Authors: Source Type: blogs