The science of raising childrenMonday
Ways of choosing when your child receives a diagnosis that alters life
Parents often fight with the news that their child has an important health problem. Learning to administer new routines and expectations is key to everyone’s happiness
“What is supposed to do now?”
This was the most common feeling of parents when I started my training in the quiet and solemn neonatal intensive care unit (UCIN) or a cheerful, cozy, slightly illuminated and cheerful children’s hospital.
I felt echoes of pain and loss of baby parents with critical diseases, sometimes displayed and slowly moving with their concern. The soft voices of Benead, the anxiety about the future bounced on each wall: they show that they would take care of their son at home without the team and the support of the hospital, how they would build the routines to help the child prosper to prosper to prosper.
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More than 20 years later, in a different children’s hospital, I saw some of the same concerns in parents or adolescents with chronic pain. While these parents were a decade or more in their care routines, many were still struggling to know what to do, how to take care of their children when they approached adulthood. Without exception, they wanted their teenagers to strive for independent adulthood, but they had trouble providing small opportunities for independence for fear of the interruption of their children’s medical care plan. Like the parents of the UCIN of my training days, these families struggled to be the best possible care providers and the best parents. That needle is difficult to thread.
Raising a child with a chronic health condition changes routines that shape everyday life. Meals, bathroom and dressing can be different from the planned; The bedtime and the game time also change. Parents still need to be patients, warm, receptive and encouraging; That does not change. Being able to praise, provide structure and consistency, remain important, but could be more difficult to prioritize. These care demands can be extreme, and research tells us that parents can have difficulty satisfying their own needs and the needs of their children, of sacrificing their own care and well -being. Load load: stress and specific stress for the role played by parents as caregivers have a child that a chronic health condition can have negative effects on the health of parents and many indicators of psychological welcome and depressed anxiety and depression and depression and anxiety and satisfaction.
After decades of studying how people handle psychological anguish, including children with chronic recurrence conditions, I have designed and evaluated support programs to help families manage daily stress. The diagnosis of a child can help families make sense or adapt to the struggles and give them an idea of what strategies they could help for those who get ahead. But it can also be deeply disturbing and scary because information can be too harmful and lead to uncertainty. No father can anticipate what his son of his child of his cultivated child in independence will be like, but those whose son has chronic health problems have fewer examples to shape their expectations. This comes in part because the raising of children is one of our most vulnerable and precious roles, so people tend to protect their struggles. It is also attributable to the unique experiences of families, even within the same diagnosis. What works for a family may not work equally well for others. That can lead people to be skeptics and protectors, reluctant to share tips or try new things.
The majority of the parents with whom I speak tell me that they do not have time or energy for self -care; The evidence also suggests the attention we provide so far, especially when times are particularly difficult and stress, especially high. When we find ourselves on the verge of being overcome, it is time to reach more than the family set of one or two relaxation activities that we know work; It is time to get deeper in the coping toolbox. It is an expectation too steep to think that parents can do everything for themselves, at least not all the time, and prepares them to feel pressure, guilt and shame cannot fit in the bathtub or a walk through the nature of the afternoon. Here is a set of skills and practices for parents of children with chronic or diagnostic diseases that change the lives that I arrived at parents who prove:
Flexibility: This first is hard work, but a recent investigation indicates that cognitive flexibility is one of the most successful ways of dealing with negative experiences. This means being slightly committed to any given solution, so when we do not see the improvement we expected, we can turn to a different strategy. Or we rigidly attach the coping skills that have worked previously, but what helped in a situation might not help so much next time. Flexibility allows us to see multiple paths outside a difficult point, and the option of traveling the previous adjustments to find the right one for what is needed at any time. When my younger brother was diagnosed with AS, I found 20 -minute daily races on an extremely useful running tape, but only in the afternoon; At night, the nocturnal regretted and ruined my dream, and running in the morning was too complicated to fit in my care and work schedule. In that case, being flexible with the moment was the key to executing as a coping strategy.
Happiness: Sometimes, the best thing we can do is spend time and try to spend it in a fun way, special with our children. The routines that bring us moments of joy are invaluable counterpoints to the seriousness of the concern and daily discomfort. Finding fast contact points that make us smile can be simple, especially when we trust our five senses. Maintaining a favorite reproduction list or songs or your favorite book next to your bed, using a favorite shirt with the correct soft sensation, or planning a favorite meal or snack after a day full of appointments, are strategies to take something to Oasil and positive in -oasil and positive in -cey in positive children.
Community: Social networks are the most agile when they are several and parents have different people to resort to their variety of needs. One way of thinking about this is to build their social security ordered both with people who are excellent in a tight place and reliable daily support: friends and family are always ready for a quiet transfer to Blun Dromat. While connections in person are valuable, online communities can also be powerful points of tranquility and encouragement.
The construction of thesis resources takes time, and half of the crisis is a difficult time to try new things. My advice is for families to use more calmly to identify and test innovative ways of dealing, practice how to involve those resources. So, when the days become tougher, resources are family and that are rather to achieve, instead of having to develop from scratch when necessary.
This is an opinion and analysis article, and the opinions expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of American scientist.
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