When mom or dad have to be away from the home for a period of time i.e. a hospital stay or a work trip out of town this can cause a lot of stress and anxiety in a child and may not always show up in an obvious fashion. As parents, we may assume that our child is fine with the situation if there are no unusual behaviours such as an increase in temper tantrums or bad dreams. We need to be aware of the little things that may be an indicator of stress such as small mood changes, change in eating or sleeping pattern, increased whininess or show of little to no interest in the absent parent. Of course these observations will be different depending on the age of the child.

For the purposes of this article my focus will be on children who are in the toddler to preschool age group. I am going to share from a personal perspective what worked for my children when I found myself ill and in hospital when they were 4 and 5 years of age.

Hospital stays can be scary a child even when they are not the patient. No matter the age there tends to be a negative impression left with a child when they think of hospitals. Who can blame them? And really, is there is nothing we can do to prevent this? When you hear of a person passing away there is a good chance that it happened in a hospital, when you are hurt, you go to a hospital, when you hear that loud scary ambulance they are on the way to a hospital.

Saying to our child that mommy or daddy is going to be ok just isnt enough! Your child will still worry. It is of utmost importance that you are as honest with your child as you can be, keeping in mind that you want your explanation to be age appropriate and not contain information that is not comprehendible for their age and maturity level. Make sure they know it is okay for them to ask questions and ensure that you have shared with the adults responsible for your child as to how you want them to handle the questions should they arrive. Some ideas for explaining to your child the reasons for going to the hospital are as follows:

1. Go to the library and access story books that focus on the issue in a child friendly matter and pre-read the material before reading to your child.

2. Write a social story with your child when explaining by drawing simple pictures and using simple words so that they can reference back to this as needed.

3. Speak to your doctor and ask him for ideas on explaining this to your child.

4. If you are dealing with a chronic illness, access a local support network or society and ask other parents how they spoke to their child(ren)

5. Dont make promises you cant keep (i.e. dont say that you will only be gone for a couple of days unless you know this for a fact). The last thing you want is for your child to think that you are keeping something from them as this will cause even more anxiety.

While you are in the hospital there are many things that can be done to help ease the anxiety of the separation on your child. The following is a list of things that I did with my children which appeared to provide them a lot of relief during my absence.

1. Try to find a caregiver that will be consistent so that your children arent bouncing from home to home.

2. Give them a t-shirt of yours and show them that you are filling it with hugs and kisses and lots of love for them wear to bed at night or whenever they feel the need.

3. Fill their blankie with the same. Tell them that whenever they need a hug from you all they have to do is hug their blankie.

4. If you normally say nighttime prayers with your child (ren) try to continue doing so, as this seems to be the most critical time of day to maintain a level of normalcy. You can do this either with a phone call at bedtime if possible or by tape recording your voice.

5. Each day plan a dream together. Plan a dream together? Yes, plan a dream together. If your little one is coming in for visits then snuggle up and work together on what type of fun adventures you can have with one another in dreamland. Maybe it will be a trip to Disneyland or maybe it will be a campout in a tree house. This will give them something to look forward to when going to sleep. The next day talk about all the fun things you experienced together. It really doesnt matter if your child actually does have the dream or not as the fun is in the planning and discussing afterwards. Again, you can do this over the phone as well or via tape if you wont be able to speak daily. I found this solution was the most helpful when departing from daily visits and grandma was able to remind them about the dreams when bedtime came. Of course dont forget to snuggle up with the blankie that comes pre-filled with hugs and kisses.

Time apart isnt easy no matter the circumstance but I hope that by following these simple ideas will make things smoother for your children (and for you too).

Robyn Auclair 2006