Keeping your child busy and feeling safe in the hospital
As a parent, your role in caring for your child during their time in hospital is a very important one. Your presence helps to comfort your child and lets them feel safer and more secure while receiving medical care.
Helping your child cope with being in hospital
As a parent, you are an essential member of the team in providing practical and emotional support. This includes:
- Continuing your normal parenting role
- Engaging your child in play and distraction activities
- Telling the staff what food and drink your child has had and how many toilet visits or nappy changes
- Talking with staff about any concerns you have about your child or your child’s care
- Letting your child be as active as he or she wants to be (when appropriate)
Please talk to people on your child’s treatment team for more help.
Babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers
Babies and toddlers will feel most secure with their main caregivers. They may fear strangers and separation from their parents. Toddlers will find ways to try and assert their independence. Some ideas to help your child cope are:
- Bring favourite items from home – toys, security blanket, dummies, stuffed animals, books, music
- Soothe or relax your child with music, singing, rocking, cuddling, reading favourite stories
- Offer your child real choices where possible, for example “Do you want to walk to the treatment room or let me carry you?”
- Encourage your child to express their feelings and help them to work through experiences by letting them play with real or pretend medical equipment, dolls and puppets and art supplies
- Read books to your child that relate to his or her concerns or experiences
- Reassure your child that he or she has not done anything wrong and is not being punished
- Encourage your child to participate in his or her care as much as possible – for example, letting them count out their tablets
- Enhance your child’s sense of security by setting limits and boundaries
- Ask members of the medical team to talk to your child before touching him or her.
Older children and adolescents
School-going children have an increasing ability to solve problems and prefer to be in control of situations. They tend to worry and may fear bodily harm or loss of function and being left out of social groups. Some may still fear separation. Adolescents are able to think about the future. They value independence, privacy and interactions with their friends and peers.
Some ideas to help your older child cope
- Allow your child to make choices and participate in their care whenever possible. For example, letting them count out their medication or tablets.
- Allow your child to direct familiar procedures when appropriate – for example, announcing the next step in a dressing change
- Use humour as a distraction technique
- Read books with your child about their feelings and experiences
- Keep your child informed about what’s going on at home with brothers, sisters, friends and pets
- Bring familiar items from home such as books, games, pictures of people and pets
- Respect your child’s need for privacy by allowing them time to be alone
- Encourage your child to express feelings in whatever way feels comfortable – speaking, music, art and writing
- Encourage your child to participate in group activities with other children of the same age.
References and further reading
