Tips to help children manage pain

For older children and adolescents, the imagery exercises discussed here may seem a bit youthful, but the concepts are relevant.

These tips offer helpful hints for adults (parents or caring adults who are assisting) to help children undergoing potentially painful procedures. The tricks featured can help children manage pain. Each tip is different. Children often find one or two quite helpful, and get better at using them with practice. Find out which one or two the child likes best and encourage him to practice whenever he can. (The tips found here have been adapted from this handout .)

The hints are primarily aimed at school-aged children, approximately 5 to 12 years of age. If the child you are caring for is younger, try doing activities during a procedure to distract his or her attention.

For older children and adolescents, the imagery exercises discussed here may seem a bit youthful, but the concepts are relevant. Discuss with your teenager ways that he could change the scripts to be more appropriate for him.

Listening to music is something that a lot of teenagers find useful to relax their minds and bodies. Feel free to bring music from home or ask a staff member if any music listening devices are available for use during a procedure.

Can I stay with the patient?

Most of the time a caring adult can help make a procedure more tolerable for children. You can stay with your child during his treatment if you are comfortable. You are NOT in the way. (If necessary, the medical staff will let you know if and why you cannot stay.)

You are an essential part of the team to help your child.

Children and pain

At Children's Memorial Hospital we believe that:

• Infants and children of all ages can feel pain.
• Children don't always tell people when they feel pain.
• Children need to know the truth about painful procedures.
• Most pain due to medical procedures can be reduced by using medications, distraction, holding, and comforting.
• Some signs of pain in infants and children include crying, irritability, fast heart beat, fast breathing, and holding the painful site.
• Pain that is not treated may get in the way of physical and emotional healing.

Children have the right to...

Children have the right to cry if they need to, laugh if they want to, and be mad if it helps make them feel better. They also have the right to:

• Have a parent or another adult with them
• Tell us when and where something hurts
• Ask for something to make the pain better
• Ask questions if they don't understand something
• Watch a movie, listen to music, play games, or read a book to help make them feel better while they are here.

Tips for helping during a procedure

ATTENTION HELPERS: Stay near the child's face. This helps comfort and distract him. Help the child choose a position that will comfort him, i.e. on your lap facing forward and hugging you. There are lots of positions of comfort. You can ask your medical staff for suggestions. Remember, being held feels different than being held down.

Hold the child's hand. Encourage him to hold, squeeze, look at, or think about a favorite thing, or think about a favorite place that will comfort him.

Be an active participant by using the items in the comfort cart, tell funny stories or jokes, or sing songs together. You can also try some of the “tricks” on the following pages.

Introducing a child to our helpful “tricks”

ATTENTION HELPERS: In a gentle and soothing voice, read this to the child:
Did you ever have a time when you got a cut or a bruise when you were playing and didn't really notice it until later? (Wait for child's response, talk about examples.) Sometimes you are so busy doing other things and having fun, that your brain doesn't have time to pay attention to the pain.

Sometimes you can get hurt and not even know it! There are some things you can do to trick your brain into not feeling any pain. Here a few tricks that you can try right now.

The imagination trick

In a gentle and soothing voice, read this to the child, pause as needed for time to visualize and feel.

I am wondering if you can close your eyes and imagine yourself in a favorite place doing something you really like to do. See if you can get such a clear picture of this place that you can hear the sounds, smell the smells – feel what it is like with all of your senses. Enjoy your favorite place for as long as you would like. When you are ready you can come back from your favorite place and open your eyes. You can go back to your favorite place anytime you want to.

Practice this often. You can visit many places in your imagination.