Why play?
Play is how children explore, interact and come to understand the world around them. Play helps children to learn and gives them a constructive way to express themselves. It is essential to the ongoing physical, emotional, cognitive and social development of children.
Play has the power to equip children to regulate their emotions and manage their behavioural responses. It is a functional and effective means whereby children can explore and express emotions in a safe and familiar way.
What is medical play?
Medical play is play that involves using real and/or toy medical equipment. It gives your child the chance to look at, and become familiar with, medical tool; in their own time and in a relaxed situation. It allows your child to process any emotional responses related to the medical equipment in a non-threatening space. Through medical play, you can gain an insight into your child’s understanding, help answer questions or address misconceptions or worries they may have.
What are the benefits?
Multiple studies have demonstrated that medical play reduces anxiety relating to health care encounters. It has been shown to decrease physiological responses to stress; including decreased blood pressure, sweating and pulse rates. Research has also shown that children who engaged in medical play had higher levels of cooperation during stressful procedures and were more willing to go back to the hospital for additional treatment. By helping your child get a better grasp on their plan of care, it encourages him or her to feel more in control of their treatment, which can lead to improved outcomes. It allows them to become more familiar and comfortable with equipment and gives them a sense of control over medical items. Your child can also play out their feelings or anxieties around their own experience and help them feel more prepared for upcoming health care encounters.
What equipment do I need?
Toy medical kits are quite cheap to pick up at places like Kmart and Big W. They have a range of generic items such as blood pressure cuffs, stethoscopes and thermometers. Using real medical equipment like band-aids, bandages, cotton balls, tongue depressors, plastic syringes can also be helpful. If your child is going in for surgery, you can ask your pre-admission nurse to provide you with a mask to help with preparation for a general anaesthetic. Also make sure you have your soft toys, dolls and teddy bears ready to be patients!
How do I use it at home?
Allow your child to choose the start and stop times for play and give them plenty of time to engage in the activities.
Try to give your child as much control over play as possible. Let them choose which medical supplies are needed and invite them to assign the various roles to each toy or doll. Ask open ended questions that promote control, such as: “What is this doll’s name? What does she do at the hospital?”
Get creative! You can use basic art and craft items to make pictures, collages or sculptures using medical supplies. Pencils and paper can be provided to draw, write stories or make plans. Plastic syringes can be used as water guns or to squirt paint.
If you have a surgical mask, you can get your child to decorate it with stickers. They can even use a flavoured chapstick to put a nice smell into the mask. Most hospitals will offer this for a real general anaesthetic as the gas can have a strong smell which is frequently off putting for children.
If your child is starting to feel overwhelmed—for example, they’re being introduced to too much information at once—take a break. They will come back to it when they are ready.
Most importantly, listen to the child as he or she engages in medical play. You can learn what they do and don’t understand or what concerns them the most; then address those questions and fears accordingly.
And remember… Medical play can be explorative, educational, directive or non-directive but most importantly, it needs to be fun in your child’s eyes!
Kate Strickland has a background in Occupational Therapy and Education and has been a Child Life Therapist working with infants, children and young people in the cardiac space for many years at the Royal Children’s Hospital. Seeing the gap in service provision pre and post hospital, she started the organisation Healing Hearts Beyond to provide a community-based Child Life Therapy service to support infants and children along with their families in managing the stresses associated with procedures, hospitalisations and medical trauma.
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