Doctor Appointment Diasters!

Readers Question

This question comes from one of my coaching clients

My daughter (8) has issues with her eyes and has had to see the eye doctor every 3 to 6 months for years. The problem is they are always so hard, even disastrous for my younger child, a boy (6) who is VERY active. My daughter is still scared of the chair, so she needs to sit in my lap and my son is usually going crazy being very disruptive. She has an appointment next week and I am already dreading it…please HELP!

Tracy’s Answer

Wow, that sure does sound challenging, I am so sorry you and your children having been going through this for years, what a bummer!

OK, so I always like to think about what the underlying needs are that are causing the behavior. Is he bored? Is he hungry? Is he tired? Which reminds me of a good slogan to remember as parents H A L T…Hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired? Remember to always check in with your kids about these things and to try to help them meet those needs before they cause an “unwanted” behavior  

Next step is to ask the child who is having a tough time at the appointment what is bothering them most about going to the appointment. Ask the direct question to the child, “What don’t you like about going to the eye doctor” (because this is a client of mine, I really got to ask this to him) He said, he didn’t like that his sister gets ALL the attention, he wants attention! BRILLIANT! The mother had already tried everything else, bringing toys, food…etc…nothing was “working”! In a way this is the L in HALT, the child was lonely at the eye doctor, because everyone was focusing on his sister!! What a bore for a very active little boy!

So then we went on to looking for solutions. I asked him how we could include him, maybe while he was there he could do the eye test by reading the eye chart letters, or ask the doctor to explain interesting things about the eyes during the exam. He liked those ideas. We also asked him if he would rather go to someones house and stay for the afternoon, instead of coming to the appointment, he said sure if he could stay with X and do Y while he was there I love how kids will tell you exactly how things should be done! Mom said she would look into it, yet if he does go along she has some new strategies to try.

1 comment April 9, 2009