Successful Shots: How to Prepare your Child for a vaccine
It is INCREDIBLY ironic that I am a nurse today because I was ABSOLUTELY terrified of needles growing up and all throughout nursing school.
I asked Caron Irwin of Roo Parenting for her best tips to prepare kids for successful shots. As a Child Life Specialist, Caron’s background is in helping parents and children prepare for medical procedures. She now offers her skills to a wider array of families via Instagram and through consultations (we attended one of her ‘Speed Parenting’ Q+A Sessions for Cohen and it was SUPER helpful!).
MEDICAL PLAY:
“One of the biggest challenges for children and the COVID vaccine is the fear of the unknown. Not really understanding what it is, how it’s given to them or really anything.
Something that can be really powerful is giving your child age appropriate, accurate information to help them feel in control. A great way to give them that information is through something we call MEDICAL PLAY.
If you can, give your child an alcohol swab, a pretend needle and a bandaid.
Remind your child a vaccine is 3 steps.
The first step is the nurse is going to use an alcohol swab to clean the area on the patient’s arm. Your child can choose which arm they want to use.
The second step is they are going to use the needle to give a 1-2-3 then poke to give the child the vaccine
The third step is they are going to put a bandaid on and celebrate, because it’s time to go home!
OFFERING CHOICE:
Providing your kids with choice is something that you can do to help them be more successful at getting something they don’t want done, like a vaccine. How we can provide choice is they can choose whose lap they sit in, or which arm they get the poke in. They could also choose what snack they bring to have before or after. Or they could also choose what game or show they are going to have on an ipad to enjoy while the vaccine is happening.
All of these different opportunities for choice might help your child be more successful at getting the vaccine done.
If your child has other medical procedures that need to be complete, Caron also told me about the SimplySayin App (it’s also helpful for adults!), which has photos and sound recordings of what to expect with all kinds of tests. You can look up what an MRI machine looks like and what to expect.