10 Year Old Daughter Needs Others Her Age To Talk To!

[KimG]

Hi,

I'm new to this board and new also to celiac disease....my daughter has had "problems" which docs could not understand. She had several tests....one in her bloodwork came back pos for gluten, but doctor not sure. Wanted to send her on to a specialist, but i wanted to try the diet first. (I know what they wanted to do next!) She's going on two weeks of gluten-free and so far there has been a HUGE difference for the BEST! This has made all the difference and gave me what i needed to know about what was going on with her.

We are staying on the diet, but it would be extremely helpful if any of your children out there that have Celiacs could email her and become email friends. She really needs to know that there are other kids out there too that are going through everything that she is going through. We are getting ready to start back to school here in Indiana and it is going to be tough! Mollie is extremely bright and a straight A student and is actually quite advanced for her age, so even an older child would be wonderful (Mollie has two older sisters, also advanced, so i'm sure that is why she seems older than she is!). Mollie will be entering 5th grade this year and was on the swim team this year and was on the girls basketball team last year (i'm sure she'll be on it again this year) but this time she'll feel better!

Any imput for any way to help her through this would be wonderful and if anyone would like to email Mollie, please reply and i will email with her email addy.

BTW, i've had her keep a daily journal about not only her diet but her feelings. Hopefully this helps her too....she's had several tearful episodes to write about. The swim team awards banquet (which was a "pitch-in") was her first painful experience at how this would effect her in the future when food is involved.

Thanks again for any help!

Kim

[Sarah8793]

Well, I don't have children close in age and interests, but I bet someone here will. I think this is a great idea to help her not feel alone. Just wanted to say welcome and good luck. I just found out today that both of my children will need to be gluten and casein free, so I will be in the same boat as you.

Sarah

[wolfie]

Hi Kim!

I have a 10 year old boy that just went gluten-free a few weeks ago and may be up for chatting via email if your DD doesn't mind chatting with a stinky boy I will warn you, though, he is not a huge talker and just got his own email address at the start of this summer. I will check with him, too, when he gets home and see how he feels about that.

Welcome here!!!

[KimG]

Hi Kim!

I have a 10 year old boy that just went gluten-free a few weeks ago and may be up for chatting via email if your DD doesn't mind chatting with a stinky boy I will warn you, though, he is not a huge talker and just got his own email address at the start of this summer. I will check with him, too, when he gets home and see how he feels about that.

Welcome here!!!

Thank you so much....I don't think Mollie would mind at all and they would at least have some topics to talk about regarding the food issue and missing fav foods, etc. I will be glad to email you her addy if you like....just let me know! Thanks again......Kim

[chrissy]

i just answered on your other post----and then read this one. my daughter's name is molly, too!!!

[snowygiraffe]

i just answered on your other post----and then read this one. my daughter's name is molly, too!!!

My 13 year old daughter was diagnosed when she was 9. She is always on the internet and loves to make new friends Shes already trying to push me off so she can chat with her!

[celiacgirls]

I have a 10 year old girl who is very interested in emailing your daughter. It sounds like they have a lot in common. She's gluten-free as of May and started CF in June. She was on the swim team and plans to play basketball this year. Also a straight A student. If you send me Mollie's e-mail, Kristina will e-mail her soon.

[pwalasik]

Hello and Welcome,

My eight year old has been looking for others to talk to for years but I wouldn't let her explore the teenage only section. She is 8 but VERY mature and VERY knowlegeable on the topic. She has been gluten-free since she was 18 months old. She knows a lot about gluten-free and life. She even educates me about gluten-free issues often. My 8 year daughter says.... "Hi, my name is Amanda. My mom is right, I was diagnosed at 18 months and I understand it can be scary. But I think that since I am gluten-free that I am special and so are you." We sould love to chat!

Pam

[KimG]

Thanks everyone, for your replies......hopefully Mollie now has a couple of new Celiac friends to share with! Just in case, i did try to email everyone who replied, but if somehow you did not get my email or if you are reading this for the first time.....please email me privately and i will send you Mollie's email address. You can understand that i do not want to post it here!

Best,

Kim

[jrozsa]

We have an 11 year old daughter that was diagnosed at 3, so she has definitely gone through the experience for nearly her entire life. She would be willing to talk or chat and help talk about how she handles things at school, how to talk about her "allergy", etc. She is quite amazing with how well she handles it, far better than I could imagine handling it myself.

[momothree]

Kim-

Hi there. I was just scanning through some of the old posts, and found yours about your daughter Mollie. I, too, have a daughter close to the same age--she turns 11 next month. I just wanted to write and say that I only wish my daughter would get interested in e-mailing and talking to others her age that are in the same boat. She was just diagnosed in July (her 13 year old brother was diagnosed in May) and she isn't dealing with it at all. I'm just not sure what she is going through because she refuses to talk about it. She adheres to the diet etc., but keeps telling me that she has no feelings about it. I, personally, can't imagine that to be the case. Maybe I'm wrong, and our personalities are just different in that regard. I have picked up some books for kids about celiac (one that your daughter may want to read is called "The gluten-free Kid--A Celiac Disease Survival Guide *really good) that I managed to get her to read, but that's as far as we have come. She doesn't want to go to restaurants, and she gets bummed out when she has sleepovers or outings with her friends, but I still can't get her to talk. I think it would do her a world of good to talk to other kids who can relate. My 13 year old son seems to be dealing with things very differently, so I think it's definitely a personality thing. I just hate the idea of her suffering silently. Thanks for listening.