How to Prepare Your Child for a Visit to the Hospital

How to Prepare Your Child for a Visit To the Hospital: A Practical Guide

It’s only normal for you to be curious about how to prepare your child for a visit to the hospital—especially if this is the first time for you and your child to experience it. This can be very unnerving for parents and kids alike. In fact, most parents think that it’s good not to talk too much about an impending hospital visit to avoid scaring the kids.

On the contrary, however, pediatric psychologists strongly recommend that parents should start discussing an impending hospital visit with their children without delay. Doing so will not only reduce the children’s fears and anxieties but will also encourage them to cooperate. Furthermore, seeing your child becoming well-prepared for a hospital visit will make you feel prepared for it as well.

Tips on How You Can Prepare Your Kid for a Hospital Visit

If there’s one thing you need to know to make this work, it’s the fact that you have to manage the expectations of your child by promoting an open, honest, and gentle communication between you and them. As you listen to their specific concerns, you’ll have an idea about how you can handle a visit to the hospital. Kids Car Donations shares these tips to make the ordeal a little bit easier for everyone:

• Communicate with the medical team.

One way to cope with all the mental and emotional stress that you could feel upon learning that your child needs to be hospitalized is to reach out to the attending physician or nurse. You can ask them questions and voice out your concerns before you take your child to the hospital. Doing so will help you plan ahead.

If your child is going into surgery and will have to be confined in the hospital, make sure that you’ll get all the information you need about the upcoming medical procedure. Ask if you can be with your child in the operation room until they get fully sedated. Also, you might want to ask when you’ll get the chance to see your child after the surgery or if you can spend the night in their room. Keeping these things in mind will enable you to be more effective in reassuring your kid that everything will be just fine.

• Keep it together.

Remember not to appear like a nervous wreck whenever your child is around because they look up to you on how to respond to any given situation. That’s why it’s extremely important to address your own fears with the medical team before you tell your kid about what’s going to happen.

• Prepare for when you come home.

You’ll have to think ahead so you can plan for the time when your child comes home from the hospital, especially if they had surgery. For example, you can ask the doctor about proper pain management to avoid either under-medicating or over-medicating. You can ask if your child’s mobility may become an issue and how to resolve it. Once you have all the details you need, it would be much easier for you to map out a plan of action.

• Ask help from family and friends.

The best time to get everything organized is before your child visits the hospital. Ask your friends and family to buy groceries, mind the cleaning, prepare meals, and keep an eye on your other children or your pets while you’re gone. It would be better if you’ll have an idea about how long your kid will be confined in the hospital and recuperate at home so that work responsibilities can be redistributed.

• Be honest yet calm.

When you talk to your child about the hospital visit, lay everything out honestly and truthfully, using words that are age-appropriate so that they’ll understand why they need to go and what they can expect to happen there. Emphasize how the hospital visit will benefit them.

• Play games.

Playing “hospital” or “doctor” with your child will help ease their fears because playing games is as familiar as it is reassuring especially for younger children. Playing can normalize the hospital experience and relieve their stress as this gives them a chance to express their feelings. Check if your hospital offers child life services that would help your kid deal with the experience.

• Take a tour around the hospital.

An onsite tour is highly recommended to help your child prepare for the hospital visit. This will give them the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the rooms, the corridors, and the people they’ll see during their stay.

Preparation is Key

If your child is prepared, it would be much easier for them to cope with their hospital experience. With the help of your loved ones and the hospital staff, this can become a positive experience for everyone.

An Incredible Way to Help Ailing Kids

Do you want to make a difference in the lives of seriously sick and disadvantaged children and teens in your community? If you do, consider donating any type of vehicle to Kids Car Donations today.

We will auction off your donated vehicle and use the proceeds to support our charity partners in providing these youngsters with free medical treatment, free educational and social service resources, emotional well-being projects, and permanent shelters and psychological services for homeless children.

You’ll not only become an instant hero to these kids, but you’ll also receive a healthy tax write-off in the next tax season as well as free towing services.

For more information about Kids Car Donations and our car donation program, check out our FAQs page. For inquiries, you may call us at our toll-free hotline 866-634-8395 or send us a message online.

You can make your car donation by filling out our secure online donation form here or calling us directly. We accept donations of almost all types of vehicles anywhere in the United States since we have vehicle donation programs in all 50 states.

Cheer Up Ailing Kids with Your Car Donation

Are you ready to put a smile on a sick child’s face? Call us at 866-634-8395 now and get started with your car donation!