Catherine Gardner suggests ways to help your child – and yourself
Many of us remember childhood visits to the doctor. Some positive, some neutral, and some pretty traumatic. This was maybe 30 years ago when the NHS was very different.
Today, the NHS is busier and more pressured than ever. We’ve all seen the headlines: longer waiting times and staff under more stress impact the healthcare experiences that we, and our children, encounter. Long waits can lead to increased anxiety, and hurried appointments can further this anxiety because we don’t feel in control or listened to. Patients can feel rushed, pressured and scared.
Now, please don’t get me wrong, I am a huge advocate of the NHS. I worked in a local London hospital for 15 years and loved, almost, every minute. But I am also a huge advocate for improving the healthcare experience for children and young people, and empowering parents to feel confident in such an alien, and sometimes inhospitable (excuse the pun), environment.
I am a health play specialist (HPS) and there are more than 600 registered HPS around the country. It is our job to work with children, young people and their families within the healthcare system to support them and make their experience as positive as possible. And I can’t tell you how much of a difference it makes.
We are a small profession and as much as we would love to, we can’t support the millions of under 18s that come through the NHS every year. And increasingly, I have been hearing about the fear and anxiety being experienced outside of the hospital: children getting more and more anxious while waiting for their appointments and parents struggling to know how to prepare their children for upcoming procedures. All of this meant that it was getting harder to improve the healthcare experiences that my patients were getting.
Why does it matter? It’s because the legacy of these negative experiences lives on. The dentist is a classic example of this.
- Scary childhood experience = not attending as an adult.
- Missed checkups = more treatment.
- More painful, invasive appointments = more anxiety.
- More anxiety = not attending the next checkup.
It’s a vicious, and understandable, cycle.
It’s probably not something you’ve thought much about. But when it’s suddenly our children that need medical treatment, it can all come flooding back.
We can influence our children’s experience of healthcare, though it can feel like a lot of pressure to do that right. How do we talk about our own appointments in front of them? It’s quite likely that it’s with an air of dread, or inconvenience. That’s important because before a child has even stepped into a hospital, they have an idea of what the experience will be like from the things they have heard about it from those around them.
Life is busy. As a working parent the juggle is real. Managing our children’s social diaries is like having a second job. We just about manage to book their dental appointment, or chase the hospital appointment letter. The date goes in the diary and we put it to the back of our minds until the day arrives. Except, often the thought lingers there, taking up precious brain space. How will my child cope? Is there anything I can do to make it better? How will I manage their emotions? The constant underlying stress is exhausting.
The way I think about it, there are three parts to an appointment; the before, the during, and the after. Ideally, we would engage, communicate and support our children at each of the three stages. But life has a habit of getting in the way.
You know your child best, and there is no magic formula that will suit everyone but here are some ideas that I hope you will find useful.
The before:
- Tell your child about the appointment.
- Keep it simple. Keep it factual.
- Make space for big emotions. It’s ok to be scared.
- Get books from the library. Use media; there are some great videos on YouTube to prepare children for different procedures, and CBeebies has ‘Get Well Soon’. Watch these first to make sure they are appropriate.
- Write down any questions you may have to take with you.
The during:
- Take a bag with extra snacks, activities, fidget toys for the waiting room.
- Prepare yourself emotionally. Do you need to bring another adult along to support you?
- Think about how best to support the child during the appointment.
- You can ask to take a break or stop – trust your gut.
The after: We don’t always have the luxury of time to prepare for a medical episode. A&E attendances of under fives total close on 2.6 million visits a year.
But you always have time after the experience to support them (and yourself!). In my opinion it is never too late to process and reflect on an experience; positive or negative. Reflecting on positive experiences can build confidence and improve that trust in the relationship with healthcare professionals. Thinking about negative experiences together can help reduce medical related trauma, clear up misconceptions and improve the trust between yourself and your child.
Reflecting on a previous experience doesn’t need to be a full on, sit down therapy session. In fact, it’s better as quite the opposite. With younger children, play always wins. Perhaps you can set up a hospital scene in their dolls’ house, or print out some medical-themed colouring. Join them in the activity and ask some open-ended questions. With older children, go for a walk or play a board game and open up the conversation in a casual way; “I was thinking about when you had your blood test, do you ever think about it?”
My favourite question to ask children is, “Was it what you thought it would be like?” This is a really simple way of starting a conversation about expectations vs reality – for both of you.
Whatever their age, let the conversation be led by them.
No one wants to go to hospital. And it is never as simple as ‘just a blood test’. It’s the countless episodes of sickness and GP appointments, stress, the logistical nightmares and the family strains that lead you to that point. Finding the time and capacity to think about these things isn’t easy but I promise you, it’s worth it.
Catherine Gardner is the founder of The Confident Patient Project supporting local families, and parents nationwide, with healthcare experiences. For more information see www.theconfidentpatientproject.co.uk and Instagram: @theconfidentpatientproject
