Ulcerative Colitis & Tweens: Perhaps the Most Difficult Age to Adjust

When children are little they don't understand ulcerative colitis. You can make comparisons to things and you can comfort them with your words as a parent. Teens are old enough to understand ulcerative colitis and, can help care for themselves as well as learn social skills with respect to the illness.

"Tweens", ages say 9 to 12 have, I believe, the greatest problem with ulcerative colitis. That has been my experience.

As our middle son grew, his biggest problems seem to occur during this age range. He was still learning about the illness of ulcerative colitis and how to cope. Of course the ages from 9 to 12 cause the biggest problem with respect to fellow students or friends being mean or at least uncaring.

When a child is young, parents and teachers can help keep the ulcerative colitis condition "under wraps". Further, a parent remains comforting at that age.

When a teen has ulcerative colitis they have a pretty good grasp of their illness and they get a better idea of who they can trust and how to function within their "society" along with how to deal with flares.

What we did with our son was to get just a little more involved in his life. Also, for his social life we often had him have friends over to our house. He felt much better being at home as opposed to going to someone else's home; he felt much more "safe" if he had a problem.

In addition to trying to keep the social aspect of his life close to home, we tried to talk to him about not taking "jokes" or "comments" personally. Classmates and friends didn't understand the illness.

In addition to having our son's friends come to our house for social events, we talked to his friends' parents about the illness so they could monitor the situation.

I have ulcerative colitis. I have found that honesty is the best policy. Taking that into account, we let our son talk to a couple of his closest friends about his ulcerative colitis condition. It was no big deal to them and I think it gave him some needed confidence. About age 15 the ulcerative colitis seemed to be a "non-event"

It is important to remember that a lot is happening with hormones and self-image between the ages of 9 and 12.

Our son faced typical maturing problems, continued ulcerative colitis education as well as social awareness training. Our answer to helping him with that problem was using home as a support and honesty. I believe it worked.

Today our son is a well-adjusted 21-year-old who has many friends and is a great problem solver. We, as typical parents, are very proud of him.