I've kept my child-friendly "diabetes" books on a shelf up until now.
The beginning of school has been crazy-busy, and Adam has had such a positive experience at school and I honestly thought that I might not need to explain diabetes to a kindergarten class. After all, I hadn't observed any kids asking Adam about his insulin pump, or his Dexcom. For some silly reason, I just thought no one noticed.
Today, while we are driving to Adam's eye doctor appointment, he says to me, "Mom...I have to tell you something. Kids at school keep saying 'Adam is sick....Adam is sick' and I am NOT SICK!" I know this is because he visits the health office so much, and really, the kids have no clue what is going on. All they know is that he leaves the classroom a lot. But he feels like he is being teased.
I asked him what he told them, and he said, "I just told them that I have diabetes." He is also saying the kids are asking about his Dexcom transmitter on his arm too.
I asked him if it bothered him and he said yes. He is always such an easygoing kid, that I often forget that things do upset him.
So, I'll be talking to his teacher about setting up a time to come in and talk a bit about diabetes on a kindergarten level, and read our books. Hopefully this will stop some of the teasing and questioning.
Now I've got to figure out how to explain this in 5 year old terms! I think I'm gonna go peek at Reyna's book she made for Joe. :)
Did I send it to you in Word? You can totally personalize it and tweak it for Adam. I had the one I made for Joe bound. It was fun and Joe loved it. Good luck and let me know if you need it in Word. Joe's class loved learning what exactly was going on with his diabetes...it took the "mystery" out of it.
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Always hard to know what little kids are thinking about our d-kids...sometimes you think you should explain, but then they don't look like they even realize your kid is a little different. Just yesterday, we were talking about JDRF with one of our neighbor kids, and she said, "I don't even know anyone with diabetes?" Despite the two that live on our block!
ReplyDeleteAww. That just made me cry. I am so sorry that he had to deal with that. Last night when I was mother birding m&m's to him, I was getting lots of stares. But I bet the storytime will be just the right thing and really, that will be something that sticks with them for a lifetime. And hopefully, they will all be more empathetic and better people for being in Adam's class. ;) Can't wait to hear how it goes. Aiden starts pre-k next week and I have my Coco and Taking Diabetes to School books all ready. :)
ReplyDeleteThis is Leigh, BTW, Google is insane this morning.
:-(
ReplyDeletePoor kiddo. J went through that for a bit. He told them he's part robot and those are his microchips ;)
ReplyDeleteI think reading the book to the class will help a lot. At least it did for us last year in preschool. I hate they have to go through the stares and questions and comments when they are so little and it's hard for them to explain it themself.
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