Helping children who have pain
There are few things more frustrating and heart breaking for a parent than to see their child in pain and not be able to do anything about it. Luckily, for parents, children do usually bounce back quickly after the pain has been deal with - but what do you do in the mean time?
The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario, Canada offers suggestions on how you can help your child:
1- Try to find out how severe your child’s pain is. If your child is old enough, you can use a series of facial expressions for him or her to point to. A face with a very sad expression can mean a lot of pain,;semi-sad, bad pain but not horrible; mouth in a straight line - not happy not sad - could be pain that’s there but not awful, and so on.
You could also try with a number of objects - for example, 1 block means just a little bit of pain, 5 blocks means some pain but not unbearable, and 10 blocks means really bad pain.
While these aren’t fool-proof techniques, they can help you get an idea of what you are looking at.
2- Severe pain is more difficult to control than moderate or mild pain. While we don’t want to give medication for just any reason, if your child has had a painful injury or a procedure (surgery, for example), you know that he or she will have pain. In that case, it’s best to give the pain reliever at regular intervals as suggested by the doctor or label, to keep the pain from getting too severe.
3- Distraction is sometimes appropriate. With older children, video games are often a great way to help them get their mind off the pain, while with younger children, it could be reading to them, playing simple games, or even letting them watch videos on television.
4- Ice can do wonders. If your child has sprained a limb, apply ice (well covered) to the area and elevate the limb. This will help reduce the pain. Don’t keep the ice on for any longer than 20 minutes though.
5- The opposite of ice, warmth, can help sore muscles and joints.
Don’t ever hesitate to get advice from your local health clinic or your doctor if you have concerns about your child’s pain. You are your child’s advocate and if you’re worried, then you need to get help.
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