Your Child with Type 1 Diabetes is Starting School

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 Type 1 Diabetics First School Year

The first year of school is approaching for your child. Going to school is such a joyous milestone for you and your child. And for the diabetic family it can also become very overwhelming for the parents. As a parent you have been in control over all the blood sugars, injections, food intake, and what to do during exercise (recess). Now it is time to start school, kindergarten is right around the corner and what do you need to do? To start you need to talk to your diabetic educator and gather information and orders from the doctor.

Getting Prepared

First you want orders from the endocrinologist. Those orders will come need to go to the school nurse about 2 weeks before school starts. Then you will meet the school nurse. At that time she will review the orders and talk to you about your child. This helps the nurse make a care plan (this will be the same for what you do for your child at home-our book can help keep all of this information sorted easily to discuss with the nurse) for your diabetic. The next meeting will be with the teachers and nurse. Before this meeting you will want to make individual care packages for each teacher. Things to have in this package is a description of your childs hypoglycemia and rescue medications like juice or smartees.

This is to ensure when your child has a low blood sugar during class then the teacher can treat in the class room if needed. Also your child should have some kind of sugar in his or her pocket and know what to do with it. Sometimes walking to the nurse is not appropriate especially with an extreme low blood sugar. Also specify that your child is never to walk to the school nurse unattended with a low or high blood sugar. The child needs accompaniment by another adult, not another student.

Next  is important to know what your services your school[provides. Some schools have a full-time nurses or a health aid directed by a nurse.  Some aids are able to give shots and some are not able to give shots (this will depend on the state and city in which you live). Most schools will have a diabetic plan in place at the beginning of each school year to help guide your childs care. If you child will at school over the lunch hour you will need to decide if your type 1 diabetic will eat sack lunch or school lunch. If you decide on the school lunch the school can provide the carbohydrate count for the meals served. With sack lunches you should send the carbohydrate count with lunch. Writing on a plastic sandwich bag or disposable container (I know it is not green to use disposable but very easy for carb counting) for each object in the lunch. Assigning carbohydrate counts on each food piece allows your child some flexibility with what he or she will eat.

504 Plans

Finally, there is the 504 plan. A 504 plan is a legal plan put in place for diabetics (or other medical reasons). As a parent of a type 1 diabetic it is your right to use a 504 plan for the treatment of you diabetic child during tests, standardized tests, during class period so they are not unfairly treated when it comes to school work and missing class time. 504 plans are not always necessary during the first few years of elementary school. As your child progresses through school this may become more important with standardized testing. The school sets up the 504 plan and you will meet with the school consoler, nurse, and any teachers you deem important.  During this meeting you will decide what incluison criteria and all party to the meeting will agree upon the academic plan.

All of this feels like more than enough to remember for the first year of school. Once you do this it gets easier (Diabetics will go through the same process each year).  Most schools have had a type 1 diabetic before and will navigate you through this process. If you hare having issues with the school enlist your diabetic educator or endocrinologist for help. They will either help you directly or get the right person to help you with the school. Once all of the medical details straightened out, then as a parent you can enjoy sending your child to kindergarten for the first and last time. Those milestones are precious.

Type 1 Diabetes and Friends

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Friends can be a tricky thing with your type 1 child. Children want so badly to fit in with others, to have a group of people who accept them unconditionally. Type 1 diabetes can make your child have the impression of being unaccepted. Now not all children feel this way. Many children have a self-confidence that is made of iron and other children determine their confidence based on others. And let’s face it: other kids can be mean and use diabetes as a way to pick on and bully your type 1 child.  As parents we want to embrace our children, keep them safe, and have them feel confident no matter what and make all of their ills disappear. If we, as parents, could do that we would wipe out diabetes all together with our wants and desires.

Since we cannot wipe out diabetes, how do we help our children to be comfortable with this lifelong disease?  I believe it depends of your child’s age. With a middle, elementary school and younger child, parents need to enter the classroom each year and talk to the class about type 1 diabetes. Joslin has a great handout to guide you as a parent through this at http://www.joslin.org/info/classroom_presentation_on_diabetes_for_elementary_school_age_children.html   Beyond talking to the class, you can also enlist the help of the friend’s parents. They will need to know about your child anyways so why not have them help talk to their child about childhood diabetes? The friend’s parent may know how to talk to their child about specific for their child.

Then with an older child,  he should start to learn to talk to their friends about Type 1 Diabetes. This will help two-fold. First, it helps your type 1 child learn about their disease a bit more because he or she needs to talk about Type 1. Secondly, I strongly believe that encouraging your child to discuss this makes them more confident about themselves. When a child becomes more confident they are more likely to advocate for themselves. With advocation less childhood bullying could occur. Kids don’t tend to pick on kids that are confident in themselves. Self-advocation is a lifelong habit.

All T1D kids need to eventually be able to discuss how their body works, why they need insulin, to carry sugar, eat often, and sometimes feel cruddy because of their sugars. Teaching your child while they are with you by talking to the classroom and their friend’s parents about type 1 diabetes will enhance your child’s ability to make lifelong habits to talk and discuss about their diabetes.