11 Year Old Rebellion?

Hi,
My son Zach is 11 1/2 diagnosed with Type 1 10 months ago. He 'embraced' his new reality and was diligent about glucose testing, covering and correcting up until around 2 weeks ago. I just discovered he has been lying about checking his BG, then applying his judgement as to how much insulin to use to correct and/or cover. I just went to download his numbers onto paper last night and discovered the ugly truth about his lying. He insisted he had been testing and the monitor must be broken. Not quite believing this, I set up a brand new meter to do testing with.
At 3:00 am he woke us to say he was low and self reported a reading of 69. So we gave him a quick sugar, carb/protein and returned to bed. This morning when I asked what his reading was he said 102. I went to the monitor to take a look and found that the reading was not 102, but 302. Further Q&A led to finding out he hadn't tested a low in the middle of the night, had just felt symptoms of a low and made up the number of 69. Well, at least it is understandable why his waking BG number would be high as essentially we treated a low that may or may not have been present.

I am saddened and confused by his deception about his diabetes numbers and treatment. His father and I are actively involved with his treatment, but encourage his independence also. I now feel that he cannot be trusted and must be managed a lot closer. He wants to know what he can do to regain our trust. I don't know that I will ever really trust him again on this subject. The discussions have been had about the reality of non/mis-treatment of the disease. He insists he understands the severity and seriousness of it all....however, his actions don't support the words.

Any advice from parents of kids in this age range with fairly recent diagnoses?
This is Suzanne, the Mom posting under my husband's (Joel) sign-up

Tags: about, blood, bolus, glucose, lying, monitoring, readings

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Permalink Reply by saundra barragan on October 30, 2008 at 6:22pm

Hi Sizanne
You have gotten some excellent responses. The thing about being "lonely, scared and feling guilty if things go wrong" strikes a chord in me. If I may suggest (and i don't know if you do or don't) I wouldn't "talk" about what he can ro can't have when you all eat or go to a restaurant. I think asking him what he thinks may work for him. He may indeed want some foods that seem like a bad choice for him as a diabetic, but are foods that his friends eat. If you can, change a few ingredients at home to make it easier for him to eat it. Or you could include him in the plans for meals at home so he can have that piece of cake or a candy bar sometime or cookies or pizza. I would not make them as rewards, but as an item that was planned for if he wants it. He may indeed feel bad sometime during the night and really want some juice or a soda, but not understand what happens to his body if he is feeling bad from being too high. He will be forociously thirsty then too As a parent of two type 1 kids i was scared of making a mistake so badly that i overdid it in being too careful and not letting my kids have much breathing room. I don't say this is what you are doing at all. This is just what i did and can see when i look back. Thank God my kids were older than your son when they became diabetic I think sometimes we have to step in and sometimes we have to step back a little. And i think help for Zach in the form of a group and help for you and your husband in the same way is a good idea. I wish so much I had done that or had that option with my kids. I wish you the best and will keep my prayers with you all. Please keep us posted. Truly we are all with you.

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Permalink Reply by a walker on January 28, 2009 at 1:25pm

I feel for you. It is tough, but it is also tough on the little guy. He is just a kid, and from what I have heard this making up of numbers and lying about testing is fairly common. My daughter did it. Don't hammer in the consequences of poor control - it really means nothing to an 11 year old that something bad could happen in years. At any rate, you don't want him to feel even worse about having such a horrible disease. I instituted a temporary tight control of always verifying what she told me. After a while, I started letting go a bit when I figured she was in the habit of telling the truth. During this time whenever she wasn't feeling well, I always wondered out loud if blood sugars could be to blame. She had lots of problems with headaches and upset tummy, and stomach pains. She gradually got the idea that if she wanted to feel better that maybe she should (try) to manage her diabetes better.
As an aside, once she went on the pump and got much better control, most of these problems did disappear even though we could never tie the two together before with testing.