Developing Lifelong Attitudes Toward Healthcare


Keywords: reflective parenting, raising children, understanding the body, understanding health care, lifelong attitudes toward health care, patient-doctor interaction, pediatric check-ups, parental attitudes toward health care, doctor visits, pre-school health, pediatric patients, learning about pain, learning about the body, learning practical healthcare strategies in childhood

Attitudes about health and healthcare start in childhood, but can last a lifetime. Every time a parent shrieks or flinches when they see a wound, every time a parent obsesses over or ignores an issue, a child learns something about what it means to be sick or hurt. They learn whether or not to trust their own judgment, they learn to cry or not to cry, and they learn who to turn to for help.

With my own daughter Solveig, I try to be conscious of how I react to her bumps and scrapes. Instead of screaming or gasping, I do my best to stay attentive, but cool. I go to her, or she comes to me, and together we calmly examine the site of injury. As we eye the scrape, I make a point of discussing it with her and pointing out specific characteristics of the injury. If it's not bleeding much, if the skin looks intact, if the swelling looks minimal, then we talk about that and why these characteristics may signal that the injury is not serious. Ideally, this will help her to make her own judgments as she becomes more independent.

What I've found is that when she's hysterical (probably more from the shock than the injury itself), it's useful to take her to a mirror and go through a joint examination in this way. She typically stops crying right away and leans in to get a good look at what's going on with her body. This also helps me to evaluate how serious her pain is - if she stops crying and doesn't resume, then it's likely that it wasn't that bad in the first place.

Incidentally, when I hurt myself (and I do), I make a point of discussing it with her. I show her my cuts and bruises and sometimes let her help in patching up by applying pressure or holding the Band-Aids. She feels useful and competent, learns something practical, and becomes my nursing assistant in the process. We also discuss the reason for my injury in the first place, so that she knows what stupid things to avoid doing in the future (like cutting towards the body).

The copyright of the article Developing Lifelong Attitudes Toward Healthcare in Parenting Practice is owned by Valerie Borey. Permission to republish Developing Lifelong Attitudes Toward Healthcare in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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