What You Can Learn From Children

A little over two years ago.

I'm snowboarding with some friends in Austria, about 1000 km from home. I'm in the cable car going up and see that my wife has called me 5 times. She almost never calls. I call back, she picks up and calmly tells me that our middle daughter is on her way to the hospital, and she doesn't know exactly what yet, but that something is wrong.

I feel the ground fall out from under me and go straight from the lift down into the valley as quickly as possible in search of a taxi to take me to the airport. I'll sort my stuff out later. Six hours later, I sit next to my daughter in the hospital who looks at me with a big smile and makes a joke that roughly translates to me never having come home so quickly before. "Dad, I have diabetes." By now, my emotions are so intense that I can barely keep it together.

The next six months were tough. Getting her glucose levels under control was a whole process that often went wrong at night too. Many high peaks and deep valleys. My wife has a nursing background and is patient and disciplined; that helped enormously. Mentally, I struggled with it. On the one hand, I find it terrible for my daughter that she has to deal with this for the rest of her life, but I also hate that we have become dependent on insulin. Tomorrow is not today, and you never know what the future holds. The thought that you are always dependent does something to me, and who knows, we might not be able to get insulin one day. I worry about more things: did I do something wrong somewhere? Could I have prevented her from becoming dependent on insulin?

On the other hand, it doesn't bother my daughter. Not for a minute. She has always been very positive, and it doesn't affect her at all. By now, we are completely used to it. When we go hiking in the mountains, we know exactly how to keep the insulin cold, we take extra sugar with us, and we have double sets that we divide between two people. We have become handy at it.

A few weeks ago.

We are staying with our family in a cottage for a week: our daughter with diabetes has a horse camp, and because she is dependent on insulin, the organization does not want to be responsible for her. So, I rented a cottage near her horse camp to keep an eye out. I'm enjoying my work, and the rest of my family is having a great time.

My wife suddenly says that she has noticed that our youngest daughter has been drinking a lot in recent weeks and looks tired. We know these symptoms a little too well. To be sure, we do a finger prick test. And yes: her sugar level is way too high. I feel the ground fall out from under me. Again.

We go straight to the hospital and the process starts all over again. Here too, I notice that my daughter doesn't care much. There are still some challenges with her thyroid where she must take some medication, but she is a happy child. She easily gives herself an injection in her stomach and just goes on with life.

Why am I sharing this story?

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog about happiness and how to attract it. Given the low number of responses and views, it seems to be a topic that doesn’t resonate with many people. But I am very much into it! Things happen to you, sure, but how you deal with them determines whether you see life as a party, or if everything feels heavy.

In that regard, our daughters are an inspiration to me. I have really struggled with the fact that this happened to them. A non-hereditary disease in two of our three daughters, but they themselves don’t mind much. This is just their reality, so no complaining and they just move on with mountain climbing, sports, surfing, winter sports, driving cars, dancing, being silly, studying, and enjoying life.

I am always amazed at the resilience of children and sometimes think that we adults don't learn enough from the children around us. Last Sunday, I did some research about what we can learn from children. I came across this article in Forbes: 10 things you learn from young children.

A quote from this article is:

"A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires."

I encourage you to read this Forbes article. In the past week, I have noticed several times that it gives a positive boost to how I view life.

And who doesn't want to be a happy child again occasionally? ??

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