How to Support Yourself and Your Child Through a Medical Procedure by Steph Heartfield

One of the most difficult situations we can go through with our children is medical procedures. Whether it be a blood test, dentist visit or a surgery, these events can leave us and our child feeling scared, anxious, overwhelmed and powerless.

As a parent, there are some things that we can do to support our child and ourselves, both before and after, to reduce and release the feelings of stress and trauma associated with medical procedures.

Not only have many of my clients used these suggestions with great success, I have also used them with my own children and the children I care for in my at-home daycare.

When my eldest son was 2 years old, he split the bottom of his lip so badly, it required general anaesthetic and a cosmetic surgeon to repair. When he was 5 years old, he had his tonsils and adenoids out. We were able to prepare him and ourselves with the suggestions written below.

If you know in advance that your child is going to have a medical procedure, here are some things that you can do to prepare them and yourself:

Role Play/Symbolic Play
Role play/symbolic play can assist children in preparing for any situation, including medical procedures. If you have a toy medical kit and some soft toys/dolls you play with them, with your child to show them what to expect. You can then let your child take over and direct the play to see what happens. This can give insight into any anxieties they may be feelings, for example maybe they might say the doctor is scary. You can then introduce laughter, because laughter is one of the most effective ways the body releases fears.

One of my family’s favourite games is The Bumbling Doctor/Patient: 

To start with, I would recommend that your child assigns the role of patient and doctor to each of you, and then you can swap roles. No matter what your role though, you will be acting like a bumbling, confused and silly patient/doctor. Remember, this won’t necessarily mean that your child will act like this at their appointment/procedure, this is a means to get your child to release their scared feelings through laughter and connection with you, so that they feel more confident going into their appointment.

Bumbling patient: if you start as the patient, you can pretend you hurt a part of your body, you’re unwell or just need fixing. Ask your doctor if you can lie down so they can see what’s wrong with you. For example, maybe you broke your arm. You can mock exaggerate the hurt “oh it hurts so much, it feels like it’s fallen off” and then indicate your arm as your foot. Your child will probably correct your complete incompetence at recognising your own anatomy. You can then say “thank goodness you know what’s what doctor.” This will help your child feel powerful in their role as a doctor, which can counteract their feelings of powerlessness about their medical appointment/procedure.

Bumbling doctor: you could have your child lie down and ask them how you can help them. They might say their tummy hurts. You can then go their knee “oh here’s your tummy, hmm it does look a bit odd.” Your child will most likely giggle and re-direct you to their abdomen. You can overshoot their abdomen and look at their neck “oh here it is I found your tummy.” Once again there will be laughter and your child will show you where their tummy is. You can start to get mock confused “what that can’t be right, are you sure that’s your tummy?” You can continue like this, as your child releases their fears through laughter, and finds your incompetence as a doctor hilarious.

Presence Time
Presence Time, is a term I use when I set a timer for a designated period of time, it could be as little as 5 minutes, up to however long you feel you can remain completely uninterrupted and completely present with you child. The idea is that your child has full control (within reason) of what you do during Presence Time, and there is only one child and at least one adult. The child chooses what to do, it may be cooking, art, lego, bike riding or even imaginative play where they assign both of you a role. In this time, you give your child your full undivided attention, you do what they say and you bask in the beauty of the child before you. This strengthens the connection between you and your child, counteracts feelings of powerlessness as you are their safety anchor, and can promotes feelings of love, security and support before they go into their procedure.

Hold Space for Feelings that Arise
With feelings of fear, anxiety and apprehension, it is normal for children to express those feelings through crying, raging or laughter. Scientific studies, such as one conducted by Biochemist, William Frey have determined that when we cry for emotional reasons, our tears contain stress hormones. This means that our tears, are the body’s natural method for releasing accumulated stress within the body. As the saying “better out than in” applies to tears too. When your child cries for emotional reasons, you can sit with them and hold a space of safety and love. You can say things such as “I’m here with you” “I can you are feeling …” “I’m listening.” When you validate, acknowledge and hold space for another person, whether that be child or adult, you are showing them you unconditionally accept all parts of them, and you allow healing to happen for that person.

Listening Support For Yourself
Sometimes, we feel so frightened, overwhelmed and powerless ourselves. If we walk around bottling up these feelings, our children can sense our own fears and anxieties, which can affect how they view and feel about the impending procedure. One beneficial way we can care for ourselves is to ask a trusted friend or family member to hold space for us (the same way as mentioned above) where fixes, solutions and advice is not given. Instead, someone listens to all that is going on for us, so we can release that burden in loving company. 

Sometimes, you have no time to prepare. You have to rush your child to the hospital, or an accident happens that not only causes physically trauma, but emotional trauma too.

When my younger son was 14 months old, he was diagnosed with a severe and life-threatening blood disorder, which resulted in too many blood tests and cannulas to count, and many emergency visits as soon as he had a fever. We lived for 5 years in a state of fear, anxiety and powerlessness. Thankfully, this is a medical condition he outgrew, and we still have quite the road ahead of us to recover from the trauma and stress.

If the medical procedure is urgent, an emergency or if you and your child need to heal from past medical procedures, here are some helpful things to help you recover emotionally and mentally:

Power-reversal Games
When a child is held down at the dentist, during a blood test or for any other medical procedure, it can result in big feelings of powerlessness. To release these feelings we can use power-reversal games such as pillow fights, tag, hide and seek, wrestling or piggy back rides. In these games the main goal is that the child is in the position of power, and we are the incompetent play partner. Our child is the one that knocks us over with the pillow and when we try to hit them, we miss or our pillow is too heavy. When we play tag, our child always catches us, but they are too fast for us to catch them. When we play hide and seek, we hide in more obvious places and are dumbfounded by how quickly we were found, when we seek, we act mock-confused as to where our child is. When we give piggy back rides we get our child to tap our shoulders to indicate which direction they would like to go in, maybe they lead us straight into a wall. All of these games lead to lots of laughter, and that laughter releases anxiety and stress.

Role Play
As above, you can use role play in the same way to help children process the medical procedure or emergency they have experienced.

Presence Time
This is the same as listed above. Presence time will allow children to feel connected, secure and safe in your presence, so they can more easily cope with what is going on for them emotionally.

Listening to the Big Feelings
Once again, as above, when we hold space for the crying and raging, we allow our child’s body’s natural healing mechanism to release all the stress hormones that have accumulated. Once a child releases these feelings (it may take several cries, over a period of time depending on the severity of the medical procedure, and how frightening and overwhelming the experience was for your child) they won’t be carrying around the emotional baggage, stress or trauma.

Seek more support
It’s important to remember that the healing process can take time, especially if you and your child have had no time to prepare. Each child and parent is unique, so remember what works really well some one individual, might not work as well for another. Sometimes you need to use trial and error to see what works best for your child in any given moment. If you’re finding it too overwhelming, if complex trauma is evident or you are really struggling to cope, please seek professional support. Allowing others to help, can help you and your child to heal, recover and strengthen your wellbeing.

Steph Heartfield is a Parenting Support Counsellor – Certified Aware Parenting Instructor – Holistic Childhood Mentor

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