Doctor, Dentist, and Hospital Visits

REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS

• Making and keeping routine doctor and dentist appointments at prescribed times is important in maintaining children's health.

• Routinely immunizing children will prevent many dangerous childhood diseases that have taken many children's lives or caused them much discomfort: chickenpox, diphtheria, rubella or German Measles, polio, pertussis or whooping cough, hepatitis B, mumps, tetanus, and measles.

• Healthy teeth help children chew well, learn to speak more quickly and clearly, and have attractive smiles.

• It is common and normal for children (especially between the ages of one and three) to be afraid of doctor and dentist visits, because they fear the unknown and want to resist being examined by a "stranger."

• Children will generally handle medical appointments or hospitalizations better and with less fear when they are:
-- Told shortly ahead of time what to expect.
-- Given the information over and over, accurately, honestly, and in simple ways.
-- Accompanied by a parent during the appointment or hospital stay.
-- Involved in their care as much as possible.
-- Given many opportunities to talk about the experience when they are home again.
-- Treated matter-of-factly about appointments.

• Children will have widely different reactions to hospitalization, depending on their age, temperament, past experience with the hospital setting, how well they have been prepared, parents' level of anxiety, and parents' attitude toward illness and health care. However, hospitalizations are always stressful to a degree for children. Common stresses include:
-- Feelings of helplessness and vulnerability.
--Loss of control over own body.
-- Painful procedures.
-- Separation from family and friends.
-- Lack of understanding of the experience.
-- Being treated like a baby.
-- Fear of death or of being cut up.
-- Loss of privacy.
-- Being ill.

• Children can have positive experiences with hospitalization. They may even gain a sense of accomplishment from the experience if it is handled well.

• One of the best predictors of how children will cope with a hospitalization is the parents' level of anxiety: calm parents tend to have a calming effect on their children, while anxious parents may make children anxious.

• It is very common for young children to believe that they caused their illness and hospitalization because they were bad, even if they do not talk about it.

• Children have a need to ask the same questions over and over in order to process their fears and concerns.

• Children have very little understanding about how the body works: a common fear is that if there is a cut, everything inside will fall out.

• Children who get in the habit of routinely visiting the doctor and dentist at an early age are more likely to have good health care habits as adults.

Excerpted with permission from THE FIELD GUIDE TO PARENTING;. Copyright © 2000 Chandler House Press. All rights reserved.