As my daughter races toward full blown adolescence, puberty, and glorious womanhood I find that our relationship at times seems to hit rock bottom. These periods are usually short-lived but occasionally and more often recently these episodes are lasting a little longer. I need to get a handle on this for a couple of reasons. Number one, the only thing I love in this world as much as my oldest daughter is my youngest daughter. Number two; my youngest daughter is only two short years behind her sister.

I understand that age has a huge part in this, both hers and mine. I also understand that a chronic disease like type1 diabetes adds a huge amount of stress to the situation as well. However, understanding, and successfully dealing, are two completely different issues.

I sometimes find myself during these low periods both a little fearful and a little depressed. Will my daughter somehow not be able to reach her full potential because of me, or even though I fought so hard, am I not the right parent to do this job? At these times for my daughter and me, our self-respect can be a little low as well as our mutual trust.

Patterns of behavior and responses can be set in motion, by either of us, that it seems we can’t do anything about. Occasionally her behavior and my response to it (usually yelling) are awful and it often leads to hurt feelings, anger and guilt on everyone’s part. Times like this can happen in a family for a wide variety of reasons. They rarely happen for no reason.

For the child it can brought on by having to cope with a stressful new experience. A new baby in the family, starting a new school, separation from someone close, parents having problems, the diagnosis of a chronic disease. All of these events involve change and uncertainty. And uncertainty brings insecurity.

For my daughter, the onset of puberty has made successful daily diabetes management very difficult if not impossible. It seems the harder she tries the worse the result. Her A1C percentage, and therefore her diabetes, is out of control. We are both frustrated by these results. When she sees my frustration with the results she interprets this as my being critical of her. She is her father’s daughter; she deals with being hurt by getting mad, very mad, at the object of her hurt, me.

It’s at that point that she protects herself by telling herself she doesn’t need my approval through being “good”. Her response to these feelings of stress and anxiety take the form of challenge and disobedience. She doesn’t know why she’s acting this way, I can tell by the look of agony in her eyes she doesn’t want to be acting this way but she can’t seem to pull herself back together.

When it gets to this point I have failed in my responsibility as her father and it is up to me to quickly recognize the problem and take immediate steps to “fix it”. With diabetes there are so many things you can’t fix, that when you find something you can, you need to jump on it. (Even if technically you caused it). I need to understand several things are happening with her. She is acting this way primarily to protect herself emotionally because she is hurt and angry. She’s not trying to get back at me and it makes no sense to retaliate.

This situation can usually be fixed by taking some specific steps. First, the instant some of the fire in her eyes starts to burn down it’s time to start to heal the situation. By simply holding her to show her I love her until the anger recedes and we can talk. By explaining that it’s not her I’m upset with. Then we can both be on the same side in a rant against diabetes.

I know that as she gets older some of these “donnybrooks” will be more serious. I can only pray that by paying attention now to my reactions, and being very aware of her feelings and reactions to me, we both will continue to develop and build on the wonderful relationship of love and trust that a daughter needs to have with her father in order to grow into a strong independent woman.

Slowly smartening up,
Rusty

Privacy Disclaimer Advertising Links Link to us Sitemap

My Child Has Diabetes Newsletter

Live a Normal Life

Sign Up Here

Rusty's Ramblings - November

Firming Up the Parental Foundation (fix it if it’s cracking)