Parent Tip: Reducing Your Child's Anxiety or Discomfort
The staff at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center gives tips that parents and / or caregivers can use to reduce your child's anxiety and discomfort.
Help reduce your child's anxiety and discomfort by:
- Encouraging your child to take deep steady breaths
- Rocking or holding your child
- Encouraging your child to read books or do other quiet activities
- Having your child rest in a comfortable space
- Doing familiar things that usually help to calm your child
- Gently offering your child reassurance
Help your child resume normal behavior by:
- Reading books about hospitals and doctors
- Drawing pictures about the hospital experience
- Playing hospital using dolls
- Making a scrapbook about the hospital
- Journaling about the hospital experience
