WHEN YOUR ADOLESCENT HAS SUSTAINED A BURN INJURY

HELPING YOUR ADOLESCENT COPE

It is normal and expected that someone who is injured may be angry, upset, or scared. Give your child comfort. But don’t shelter your child from the truth about his or her condition.

Check in with your Adolescent often about:

How he or she is feeling, emotionally and physically

How they are managing  their treatment plan

Whether he or she wants you to do more or less to help (let your child tell you how much responsibility they feel they can handle)

Praise your child for taking an active part in his or her treatment and following directions without resistance.

Don’t yell or get angry if your child won’t follow his or her treatment plan. Instead, work with your child and your child’s doctor. Discuss ways to adjust the treatment plan so your child will be more willing to follow it.

Find ways to continue to allow your teen be a teen. As much as possible, let your child have visits with friends or talk and interact with friends by phone or computer.

Do not be surprised if your teen to want to take charge and be in control and then want you to take charge and be in control.  It’s okay for you to take over some responsibilities from your child until your child is ready to take them back.

Maintaining Your Perspective

After the diagnosis of a chronic illness, you and your child have new challenges. But never forget that your child is still a child. Don’t let the illness dictate how you parent or change your relationship with your child. Here are some tips:

Maintain discipline, rules, and boundaries for your child. Don’t let your child off the hook in terms of behavior or responsibility because of the illness.

Avoid becoming overprotective or overbearing. You may be tempted to control your child’s choices and actions to help keep him or her safe. But this will hurt your child in the long run. Let your child take some responsibility. This may mean that your child makes mistakes. But learning from mistakes is an important part of growing up.

Treat your child like a normal teen as much as possible.

Your Child’s Doctor and Treatment Team

Encourage your child to speak and talk with her doctor and nurse about medical care and treatment plans.  You might want to help your child write down questions or concerns she has to ask the doctors.

Encourage your child to share what is going well and reflect progress as well as things that are not going well.

Watching for Anxiety or Depression

It’s normal for your child to have trouble adjusting to a painful injury like a burn. In the short term, worry, sadness, or fear is to be expected. But if they last, they may be signs of a more serious problem. If you notice any of the following, talk with your child’s healthcare team:
Excessive crying
Changes in appetite
Not sleeping or sleeping too much
Talking about feeling hopeless or worthless
Loss of interest in family, friends, or activities that were once enjoyed
Reports of frequent nightmares
Reports that they are having frequent and intrusive thoughts about the circumstances of their injury

Encourage the establishment and maintenance of a daily/weekly routine

Whether your child is at home or in the hospital he will do better with a routine.  While in the hospital, work to establish a routine with the staff. This routine should include meal times, therapy appointments, school or recreational activity as well as wound care and other medical treatments.  It is helpful for adolescents to have a period or periods of “free time” built into their schedule.  Sleep is very important and sleep cycles can become turned around in the hospital setting.  Encouraging a regular time for “lights out” as well as building in an afternoon rest period can be helpful while recovering from an injury.

Encourage your child to maintain contact with friends and peers

Your child may need encouragement and help to keep in touch with friends, classmates, and siblings through letters, e-mails, cards, videos, and visits.  You may be able to set up a Web site for your child that friends can check.

Encourage your child's friends to visit her in the hospital.

Coping strategies for your family

Once the emergency period is over, return as quickly as possible to the usual family routine. 

Follow the same rules at home with your child as before the injury. For example, if you suddenly allow your ill child to hit her brother, she will sense that something is really wrong. This creates anxiety in your child and resentment in her brother.

Don’t buy your child lots of gifts. Although she may be happy briefly, getting gifts is not part of “normal” life and can create anxiety. A few small gifts to reward her courage may be appropriate. In the same way providing rewards for the other children in the family for helping or sacrificing during a time of medical emergency can also be appropriate.

Try to make sure that family roles do not change too much. Older siblings should not become “substitute” parents. Social workers can help with issues concerning parenting or relationship counseling.

     
 RESOURCES

Health Care Tool Box:  Your Guide to helping children cope with illness and injury.  This website was established to help parents and families as well has health care professionals reduce the stress and distress that can accompany injury and hospitalization.  Check the patient handouts and educational materials.  http://healthcaretoolbox.org

After the Injury: helping parents help their kids recovery is a website managed by The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.  Its a site to help parents learn about injury and trauma and how to develop care plans for their child as well as themselves. http://www.aftertheinjury.org 

Helping Children Cope with the Intensive Care Unit.  This is a section of the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital resources page.  It walks you through a series of drawings that describe the equipment in an intensive care unit, tells you what the equipment does and concludes with all of it attached in the final picture.  This can be good preparation for a child going into an intensive care unit. http://www.uihealthcare.com/topics/medicaldepartments/pediatrics/copingwithintensivecareunit/index.html  

Helping your Child Cope with  Pain.  A booklet developed by Mass General Hospital.  Downloadable at:  http://www2.massgeneral.org/painrelief/Helping%20Your%20Child%20Cope%20with%20Pain.pdf