The Hospital Waiting Game

The Hospital Waiting Game

The Hospital Waiting Game

Katie Taylor, CCLS Child Life On Call for SmileMakers Inc

Waiting Room Waiting Room

Every day we can experience a wide range of feelings from highs to lows. Our day can start out feeling well rested and excited to conquer a new task but can quickly turn to frustration or even anger when things don't go our way. Feelings can be hard to identify and even harder to express.

Children in the hospital are often faced with the challenge of trying to cope with whatever medical crisis they are experiencing while attempting to identify, acknowledge, and even express feelings that are associated with it. As Child Life Specialists, we help kids, teens, and their families identify feelings and educate about appropriate coping skills that may help the family.

Waiting Room Waiting Room

One thing that triggers feelings of anxiousness or concern is the time that is spent waiting. Waiting for a test, procedure, results, the doctor… you name it. We often identify that anxious, twisted gut feeling as feelings of anticipation Smilemakers.com has many great tools that I like to use when I am helping a child cope with those feelings of nervousness and anticipation.

Below are two of my favorite games to give children when I recognize that they are starting to have difficult feelings associated with waiting.

Waiting Room

The Superhero Puzzle Game and the Cell Phone Water Game really makes you focus (yes, even me!) and cell phone water game can be used to encourage a child to focus on something other than their difficult feelings and practice a coping strategy of "changing channels" to help create a positive feeling; possibly happiness, joy, or excitement. Both games are fun, create competition, and even encourage imagination.

2022-02-07 19:13:00 59 viewed
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