Self management is about growing in confidence and gaining new skills, to help you manage your child’s condition. Eventually as your child gets older, they will be able to take over and learn to self manage their asthma.
This will be done with support from your health care professionals, carers and family. This does not mean that you have to cope alone or that the health care professionals are abandoning you.
Self management is about you finding what works best for your child in terms of coping and managing everyday living activities when living with a long term condition. The support your child needs will always be in place but you will be the person managing it. It is about you being in control of your child’s condition and not it taking control of you!
Here are some tips for successful self management.
- Understand as much as you can about your child’s asthma.
- Understand how asthma affects your child.
- Improve the way you and your child cope and their well being.
- Know when and where to get the help you need.
- Know how to communicate with the healthcare professionals about your child’s asthma symptoms.
- Know which actions you and your child can take which are personally meaningful and important to manage your child’s asthma.
- Know what to do if your child’s asthma gets worse.
- Involve your child in making decisions about their asthma as they get older.
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