1- Many parents are much more comfortable with attempting to influence their children/ adolescents through coercive or punitive approaches rather than through praise, encouragement, and admiration. However, when parents offer praise to their child/ adolescent who masters a new self-care responsibility, it helps to boost their self-esteem!

2- Parents who actively supervise the diabetes management skills while promoting self-care, and who praise and encourage success and proficiency, while solving diabetes problems with, rather than for, their children/ adolescents, can empower their children/ adolescents to be independent and self-confident.

3- Parents should be the first to applaud their child/ adolescent when they're being responsible. But, parents need to careful to reward their child's/ adolescent's efforts, not necessarily the outcome, because diabetes can't be managed perfectly.

Protect without being Pushy

1- Be supportive, but don't push as your child takes on self-care responsibilities. Encourage your child's/ adolescent's gradual and progressive involvement in self-care based on his/her maturity, skills, readiness, and interests.

2- Avoid being overprotective and reinforce the goal and expectation that kids with diabetes can do anything that kids without diabetes can do.

3- Your child's/ adolescent's attitude about diabetes will be in large measure a reflection of their parents' attitude, so it's vitally important that you approach diabetes management as matter-of-factly as possible.

Planning and Preparing

1- It is important that parents allow their child/ adolescent to do activities that other children/ adolescents do. Your child/ adolescent can still play sports, stay overnight with friends, and eat the foods that classmates do. It just takes a little more planning and preparing than it did before. Preparing for such events as much as possible and knowing what to expect in advance helps reduce stress.

2- As the Boy and Girl Scouts motto says: "Be Prepared." In this case, depending on the child/ adolescent's age, they should be prepared to care for their diabetes by carrying their glucose meter and strips with them, wearing a medical ID bracelet, and having glucose tablets (or equivalent) in case they need to treat low blood sugar reactions.

Plant seeds of confidence

1- If you want to successfully raise a child/ adolescent with diabetes, you have to learn to share your child's/ adolescent's diabetes with them. By allowing your child/ adolescent to participate in their self-care, you're planting the seeds for confidence, acceptance, and independence for living with a life with diabetes.

2- Children/ Adolescents from families with more knowledge have improved diabetes management and a more positive psychological outlook on life. Knowledge is power, so parents' need to talk to their child/ adolescent about diabetes. Teach your child/ adolescent the relationship between eating and exercise and how they affect blood sugar levels. Sharing food and exercise also creates a special bond within the family.

3- When your child/ adolescent begins taking on new self-care responsibilities of diabetes management, use baby steps, so that he/she will not feel overwhelmed. Each small success will help give the child/ adolescent the confidence necessary to assume total responsibility for self-care.