Ten Keys to Helping Your Child Grow Up With Diabetes, The

Dr. Wysocki, a child psychologist,draws from his wealth of experience dealing with children, teens and families affected by diabetes.

He conceptualizes the layers of diabetic management as a pyramid. Like the food pyramid, the first steps are the basic staples and other steps follow. Basic, factual knowledge serves as the basis. He discusses other common challenges faced by the family of a young person with diabetes. I particularly liked his sections on communication and on dealing with crises. He shows how certain common family conflicts might play themselves out in a family affected by diabetes.

He does a superb job of discussing the specific self-care steps a young person must master in order to move toward independent diabetes management. Some families and clinicians have set ideas about when a child should manage the diabetes independently. He takes a more moderate view. One must judge the developmental readiness of each individual child and adolescent.

In the section on dealing with the health care team, he talks about gradually allowing the child and then the adolescent to take a more central role in communicating with his care team.

This is a very informative book. It is a must-have for those families who have children with diabetes.

Condensing many of the possible things one could say about raising a child with diabetes into 10 key points makes it easy to apply the book to your life.

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