by Jamie Droke
Child Life Specialist

While most child life specialist spend most of their days working with children on coping with being in the hospital, I have the privilege of spending most of my days working with parents on coping with their child being in the hospital. I am the child life specialist for the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and most of my patients either don’t feel well enough to engage in coping techniques or are sedated for most of their PICU stay. So my role focuses more on the coping of parents and siblings. Over the time I have been working in the PICU, I have noticed several very different coping strategies that parents and siblings use to deal with their child or sibling being in the hospital.

• Withdrawal: Have you ever asked someone how they are and they say they are fine? And yet, you know just by the look on their face that they are anything but fine? These families tend to not want to discuss their worries and fears and instead will say anything to make you believe they are okay.
• Family Support: Some families who are not close to one another before a hospitalization can become very close during a time of difficulty. These families learn to lean on one another to help care for everyday things like laundry, meals, and picking the other kids up from school.
• Faith: During a difficult time, many parents turn to their faith and spend their time in prayer, meditation, or reading the scriptures. For these families a visit from a chaplain or a pastor can be extremely helpful.
• Question-Asking: Some parents find it very helpful to have as much information as possible even if the information does not directly relate to their child. These parents will ask nurses and doctors countless questions to get their answers.
• Avoidance: These parents tend to busy themselves with anything other than the matter at hand. If they have a sick child, perhaps they visit for a short amount of time and then leave to go take care of things at home. Perhaps they remain at the hospital but spend their time away from the bedside because it is too difficult for them to remain there.
• Humor: This is my personal favorite because I do believe that laughter is the best medicine. These families use humor to make it through each day. Sometimes their humor is a mask to cover their hurt and sometimes it is instead an indication of their ability to cope.

There is no right or wrong way to cope and this is by no means an all-inclusive list. Many parents seem to utilize some combination of these strategies to make it through each day. It is however to know your coping strategies and for those who cope through withdrawal or avoidance, it is important to know when to ask for help so that you can somehow deal with the situation at hand.