Engagement with the child needs connection and respect.
What about connection?
Up to this post, I have been busy setting the environment and the personal background.
I have demonstrated, how the background noise in our minds interferes with any exchange of information.
I spent some time, demonstrating how fear and curiosity are the two emotions when we encounter new situations.
This is especially true, when the child and their family come to the hospital.
So, here the setting was laid out.
What about respect?
As a next step, I have embarked on explaining some of the obstacles for any interaction between the medical professional and the child, who is their patient and their parents.
In essence, respect refers to the fact, that we need a shared language to make communication possible. There are specific steps we can take, to improve the experience of the patient to feel respected, and they are laid oud in the concept of SCARF.
Engagement with the child needs connection and respect.
How to engage with the child?
In the next posts, I will lay out some practical steps how to bring this engagement into action:
- Allow them to approach
- Give the child an active and relevant role
- Deal with mental obstacles
- Empower the child and their parents
And then?
Engagement with the child needs connection and respect.
Last not least, I will present some tips and tricks for specific situations, like:
- Why I think the “traditional” approach is wrong
- Specific situations that pose challenges
- How to support a child physically during the examination
- How to deal with teenagers
- How to help a child with disruptive behaviour
- What to do with more than one child in the consultation
- Suggestions for challenging parental behaviour
- How to deal with misguided expectations
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