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Jackets

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Scottish Zoe

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Hi peeps, I'm new here :).

I am a parent of a 8yr old daughter that has type 1 diabetes so I always ask her to zip her jacket up during unpleasant days so my question is: am I doing the right thing :)?
 
My Mum always told me to zip my jacket when I was a kid.
I did not get diagnosed with type 1 until I was in my 30s.
I think caring about your kid feeling the cold is being a Mum regardless of whether she has diabetes.
 
helensaramay said:
My Mum always told me to zip my jacket when I was a kid.
I did not get diagnosed with type 1 until I was in my 30s.
I think caring about your kid feeling the cold is being a Mum regardless of whether she has diabetes.
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Why do kids need to be asked though, instead of doing it themselves? I am not the only parent at the school gate who uses the phrase "zip up your jacket please" nearly every day.
 
What has that got to do with it? Your kid, your rules
 
All kids will do what they wish to do (once they're capable of zipping up their jackets without you reminding them) so I'd leave other parents / children to make their decisions. A few more important things in life than that
 
Scottish Zoe said:
Why do kids need to be asked though, instead of doing it themselves? I am not the only parent at the school gate who uses the phrase "zip up your jacket please" nearly every day.
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I don't know why but I expect it is the same reason why you have to ask kids to tidy their rooms, tuck in their shirts and don't forget their sports kit!
 
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Hi @Scottish Zoe,
I think partly it is because that is what our mothers taught us as part of not only warding off becoming cold
but also because the urban myth was and still is that getting cold might make you more prone to catching a cold.

Most but not all children i have observed seem to have no sense about feeling cold.
There are too many distractions around to notice how cold their skin or nose is!

Cold weather is known to favour the appearance and spread of virus infections, colds etc.
And such beasties can play havoc with blood sugar levels (BSLs) of us T1Ds!!

I have come across anecdotal evidence that upping vitamin D levels in the colder weather might help prevent
colds but how true this actually is is a moot point.

Finally I recall going along to an induction weekend with my daughter for those proposing to do the
Duke of Edinburgh's Award. This was held at an old sheep property outside Canberra, A.C.T.
Australia in the middle of winter.

This particular morning was to be demonstration about how it felt to begin to suffer from exposure.
(the really cold kind)!!
We had to wear our swimming togs and a pair of sand shoes (daughters, fathers and mothers)!! and
individually wade across a creek with water about waist deep.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the air temperature at 9 am that fine morning was - 4 degrees C !!
I recall that half way across the creek, aided by a rope strung across for support, the water was so intensely cold that I lost all feeling below the waist.

I reckon someone could have chopped off my leg and I would not have felt it. And I still had to get the other side and back!!

All the teenagers and most of the parents braved the crossing. There were towels and dry off on, fires burning and makeshift circles of standing people to allow those inside to change into dry clothes.

So in addition to it being utterly impossible to draw any blood with a finger prick in cold conditions, and that you can get very disorientated, there was also the risk that I could have injured my toes, feet, hands etc and would not know til later !!

Wishing all warm hands, faces and feet !!!
 
Hi and welcome to the forum. My son now a young adult, not diabetic, wouldn’t even wear a jacket, never mind zip it up, when he was 8 whatever the weather! :joyful:
 
Absolutely fine to make your kid do up their jacket, as a caring mother thing.

But, as a T1 since 8, I was glad that my parents made as little fuss about T1 as possible. So my Mum might have told me to do up my jacket, but it would never have been because I was T1. I suspect that my parents were privately terrified by my diagnosis (I found out about this 20 years later), but they never made me feel that there was anything I couldn't do because of T1. So I went through childhood aware of diabetes, but free of fear.

There's enough stuff that T1 kids have to do now (insulin, blood tests, glucose) without adding additional constraints which are because you're T1.
 
My 6 yo comes out of her class with her jacket hanging off her shoulders. She looks a mess! We tried to get her to come out with it done up for quite some time but it seems to make no difference whatsoever.

But come to think of it I never felt the cold much as a kid and minimal attire in my teens was common for me even in the winter. I didn’t feel the cold then. I do now though.
 
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