The CGM Blog
How to Help Your Child Manage Diabetes at School
Sending young children to school is an emotional experience for every parent, but it can feel even more daunting when you’re concerned about managing your child’s diabetes. When it’s time for your kid to start or return to school after receiving a diabetes diagnosis, you’ll need to begin the process of coordinating and communicating with teachers and staff about how to support your child’s diabetes management at school. It’s important that the team at the school understands that they’re your partners in making sure diabetes doesn’t interrupt your kid’s ability to learn and achieve their goals. Know that with the right support in place, your child can have a healthy, fun, and fulfilling educational experience at school just like any other kid.
How to Start Planning for Your Child to Manage Diabetes at School
It’s a good idea to start your learning journey by looking up your local school board’s policies and provincial or territorial guidelines around managing diabetes at school. These documents can help you understand what diabetes care in school might look like for your child, what you need to discuss with your child’s teachers and caregivers, and what should go into your child’s plan for managing diabetes during the school day.
In addition to the official policies, be sure to check out these helpful resources that can offer more insight into what you can do to set your child up for success:
- Diabetes Canada Guidelines for the Care of Students Living with Diabetes at School provides general instructions for parents and teachers supporting kids living with diabetes.
- The Diabetes at School website is a comprehensive resource for families, created jointly by Diabetes Canada, the Canadian Paediatric Society, and the Canadian Paediatric Endocrine Group.
Preparing to Send Your Child to School when They’re Living with Diabetes
After reading up on the recommendations and regulations for diabetes care in school, be sure to discuss your child’s diabetes management plan with their doctor. Once you know what your child will need, you can start to put support and resources in place to ensure your child can thrive at school. Here are just a few of the first steps you can take to get ready to send your child off to class.
1. Connect with Your Child’s Teachers and After-School Caregivers
It’s important that all the adults who will be responsible for your child throughout the day are aware that your child is living with diabetes. This includes teachers and teaching assistants, gym teachers, the school principal, after-school caregivers, and bus drivers. At the beginning of the school year, or when your child is ready to go back to school, be sure to set up meetings with these individuals. Take the lead during your meetings and educate them about your child’s unique treatment plan, diabetes management routines, and what support your child will need from them.
Open and clear lines of communication between you and the school are essential. During the meeting, discuss how you’ll communicate with the staff about your child’s health. Figure out who your points of contact will be at the school. Let them know the best ways to contact you in the event of an emergency and that they can get in touch with you any time if they ever have questions.
In most cases parents are responsible for informing teachers and school staff and making sure that they know how to support the student living with diabetes. The Canadian Paediatric Society recommends that at least two staff members receive annual training and diabetes education to ensure they can provide support to students living with diabetes. However, every school board, province, and territory has slightly different mandates about the type of training staff are required to have. It’s a good idea to look into the rules in your area and the resources available to staff to learn more about diabetes care in school.
2. Create an Individual Care Plan (ICP) for Your Child
An individual care plan, or ICP, outlines who is responsible for looking after your child at school and provides instructions for managing blood sugar, also known as glucose, and dealing with emergencies like hypoglycemia (low glucose) and hyperglycemia (high glucose). Diabetes Canada, the Canadian Paediatric Society, and the Canadian Paediatric Endocrine Group all recommend that children living with diabetes have an ICP to support their diabetes care in school.3
ICPs clearly lay out the roles of all the individuals involved in your child’s diabetes management, including you and your child. It also lists the teachers, support staff, or nurses who will participate in your child’s care and their responsibilities—such as monitoring your child’s glucose levels or helping them dose their insulin. As your child grows up, these roles may change. For example, kids may get comfortable injecting insulin by themselves or checking their own glucose levels at home and feel confident doing it at school as time goes on.
It’s important to consult your school board and provincial or territorial mandates about what should be included in your ICP. Here are a few templates to help you get started on your child’s ICP. In general, ICPs typically list information such as:3
- Emergency contact information.
- How often to check your child’s glucose levels.
- Information about how to treat low and high glucose.
- Your child’s insulin dosing schedule.
- A regular meal and snack schedule.
- What to do around physical activity.
- Details about the contents and location of your child’s emergency kit.
Share the ICP with your child’s school once you’ve completed it and identified everyone’s role. Since diabetes changes as your child grows, it’s a good idea to revisit and update the ICP each school year.
3. Prepare Diabetes Care and Emergency Kits
Your child will need a diabetes emergency kit that has supplies to help them deal with low glucose. In addition to the supplies your child carries with them in their own bag, it’s essential to have at least two emergency kits stored at the school.4 Many kids store one kit in their homeroom and another one in the gym in case they experience a serious low after exercising. You should also make sure that your child has an emergency kit with them on field trips and at school sports or band practices at facilities off school grounds.
Just a few examples of items that should be in the emergency kit include4:
- Blood glucose meter, test strips, and lancets.
- Extra insulin and an insulin pen or syringes—which may need to be stored separately in a refrigerator.
- Carbohydrate-rich snacks.
- Sources of fast-acting sugar like glucose tablets, LifeSavers candy, or fruit juice boxes.
- A glucagon emergency kit.
- Ketone test strips or a meter for measuring ketones in the blood.
Make note of all the expiration dates on the supplies in the emergency kits that are kept at school. Be sure to regularly check if anything is expired or if any supplies need to be restocked. In your child’s ICP and your agreement with the school, it’s a good idea to spell out that you are responsible for checking and restocking the emergency kits to ensure there aren’t any miscommunications about which supplies are running low or expiring.
4. Give Your Child a Confidence Boost
Heading into a new school year is both exciting and nerve-wracking for any kid. Your child may experience many emotions around going back to school knowing they will have to talk about and manage their diabetes around friends and teachers. The prospect of being in school on their own can be stressful and even scary—especially if they have to return soon after they’ve been diagnosed. It will take time for your child to learn how to take care of themselves at school and communicate effectively with their teachers and caregivers. Make sure your child is comfortable talking to their teacher about diabetes and let them know that the adults at school are there to help and support them.
It might also be a good idea to set up a time to talk to your child’s whole class to raise awareness of diabetes in school. When your child’s friends and classmates have a better understanding of what’s going on and why your child needs to check their glucose and take insulin, for example, they’re more likely to be supportive. It can also provide context for things like your child’s snack schedule or routines around gym class and recess—which may be different for the other kids. Involving your child’s peers in the diabetes discussion can help your child feel a greater sense of belonging and inclusion at school, giving them the confidence to be themselves and take pride in their diabetes management.
Get a Little Extra Peace of Mind with Remote Glucose Monitoring
Sending a child who is living with diabetes to school for the first time can bring up worries and fears for parents, too. Not knowing how your child is feeling, if they’re getting the support they need, and—perhaps most importantly—where their glucose levels are at can be anxiety-inducing. Many kids can’t recognize the signs of low glucose and may not know when to communicate that something feels wrong, which can lead to an emergency. Not having visibility into what’s going on with your child’s glucose during the day makes it difficult to know whether their diabetes management routine is working—or if they need urgent care.
The Dexcom G7 Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) System can give you, your child, and their teachers and caregivers better insight into what’s going on with your kid’s glucose. With Dexcom G7, your child or their teacher can see real-time glucose readings directly on a compatible smart device or handheld receiver.* You can also use the Dexcom Follow app† to monitor your child’s glucose readings and see how their levels change during gym class, at recess, and after lunch and snack time. This can help you spot patterns and identify issues with your child’s glucose management routines so that you can make changes sooner.†‡
Using Dexcom G7 alongside Dexcom Follow can give you a little extra peace of mind around catching lows and understanding how activities affect your child’s glucose. With easy-to-read graphs and notifications, Dexcom G7 can also help you empower your child to monitor their own glucose and take action to care for themselves, even when you’re not with them.
*For a list of compatible smart devices, please visit dexcom.com/compatibility.
† Followers must have compatible smart devices to use the Dexcom Follow app. To view a list of compatible devices, visit dexcom.com/compatibility.
‡ Separate Dexcom Follow app and internet connection required. Internet connectivity required for data sharing.
† Followers must have compatible smart devices to use the Dexcom Follow app. To view a list of compatible devices, visit dexcom.com/compatibility.
‡ Separate Dexcom Follow app and internet connection required. Internet connectivity required for data sharing.
1 Checklist for families preparing for school. Diabetes at School. Accessed August 14, 2024. https://diabetesatschool.ca/preparing/checklist-for-families-preparing-for-school
2 Lawrence SE, et al. Managing type 1 diabetes in school: Recommendations for policy and practice. Canadian Pediatric Society. February 6, 2015. https://cps.ca/documents/position/type-1-diabetes-in-school
3 Individual Care Plan. Diabetes at School. Accessed August 14, 2024. https://diabetesatschool.ca/resources/individual-care-plan
4 Preventing and preparing for emergencies. Diabetes at School. Accessed August 14, 2024. https://diabetesatschool.ca/understanding/emergencies
5 Lega IC, et al. Diabetes Canada Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Prevention and Management of Diabetes in Canada: Hypoglycemia in Adults. Can J Diabetes. 2023;47(7):548-559. doi:10.1016/j.jcjd.2023.08.003
2 Lawrence SE, et al. Managing type 1 diabetes in school: Recommendations for policy and practice. Canadian Pediatric Society. February 6, 2015. https://cps.ca/documents/position/type-1-diabetes-in-school
3 Individual Care Plan. Diabetes at School. Accessed August 14, 2024. https://diabetesatschool.ca/resources/individual-care-plan
4 Preventing and preparing for emergencies. Diabetes at School. Accessed August 14, 2024. https://diabetesatschool.ca/understanding/emergencies
5 Lega IC, et al. Diabetes Canada Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Prevention and Management of Diabetes in Canada: Hypoglycemia in Adults. Can J Diabetes. 2023;47(7):548-559. doi:10.1016/j.jcjd.2023.08.003