I am currently on a pediatric placement in the area of oncology. I am seeing a sweet 11 year old boy as an outpatient who had a brain tumour 5 months ago which has since been removed and treatment has finished. However his outcome from the treatments is a grey area and whether he is cured has not been confirmed. I am treating him for general strengthening, cardiovascular fitness, balance and coordination. His mum brought up that he got pins and needles in his left arm and leg whilst at school that day. She then went to tell his doctor whilst we kept doing physio. Whilst mum was gone for 15mins he continued to be talkative, however as soon as mum returned he immediately got teary and said he didn’t want to do the exercises.
When he got upset it shocked me because it felt like it came out of nowhere. I knew he wasn’t upset at me or about the actual exercises since he’d been doing this personalized exercise program for a few weeks now. I tried to find out from him why he was upset, but he didn’t say, so I asked him if he’d want to play some balloon tennis, which he immediately responded positively to and the tears were gone within seconds. Whilst playing tennis he was back to being talkative and laughing, and opened up to myself and his mum that he was worried about the pins and needles he had felt in the day and this brought back concerns about his cancer returning.
Dealing with an upset child and getting them to share their concerns is different from an upset adult who is more likely to verbalise their issues. I think it was important to try finding out why he was upset, and show empathy. Children won’t necessarily talk when they are crying, hence the change in tactic by playing something fun and cheering them up first. I also learnt that children can come across as seeming emotionally stable but may in fact have an issue bothering them.
From this experience I reflected that many aspects can make a child emotional. It could be one or a combination of things that upset them or possibly even nothing at all that can make them cry. In future I will be less shocked when a child cries during a treatment session unexpectedly. Comforting a child INITIALLY, WHICH may involve distraction strategies, and then later finding the underlying issue upsetting the child, would be my approach in a similar event.
1 comment:
Working with younger children is very challenging. He is probably constantly seen by many medical professionals, so bombarding him with further questions about his tears may have cause further silence. I think that the distraction with the balloon game was a very clever and effective way to make the boy feel comfortable. Diverting what may have been an embarrassing situation for him into a fun game builds a rapport between you and the child which results in trust hence the comment about being scared.
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