Home issues

I am on a paediatric placement at the moment which has been a really good experience. I feel that i've learnt a lot because of all the extra duties that we have to do in paeds that are not taught at uni. These include developing a rapport with kids, interacting with school teachers, attending home visits and interacting with parents. The paediatric setting i am working in is very 'family centred'. This means that the parents always need to be informed of what therapy their child is receiving and also how they can be involved and therefore continue the therapy at home. Its therefore important to develop a rappot with the parents aswell as you come into contact with them either through phone calls, home visits or when they're dropping their kids off at school.

This all sounds good in theory but a lot of the time it can be difficult. There are often home issues going on with the family and physiotherapy is generally not a priority at that time. The home issues are at the forefront of the family's mind and it often impacts negatively on the child. This can result in the child being withdrawn at school, demanding attention or even just missing school all together. I encountered one of these home issues recently when attending a school visit and completing an assessment on a child. I had already seen this child two weeks earlier and he had been an enthusiastic and happy kid. the second time i saw the child things were different. He was still generally cooperative but i could tell that something was wrong. I asked the boy how school was going and he told me that he hadn't been to school for a few days. He then said that his parents had split up and then got back together within the last few days. I was a bit suprised how open the boy was with this information and i wasnt quite sure what to say. I responded with "oh ok" and then my supervisor said "thats no good" to the boy. I felt sorry for the boy but i wasnt sure how to comfort him because he didnt seem that upset about the situation. We moved on and the rest of the assessment went fine

I was thinking about the situation all through the assessment and when we got in the car to leave the school i asked my supervisor if i could have responded better. She said i didnt say anything wrong but maybe saying something else to comfort the boy might have been good. I explained to my supervisor that i think its difficult to know what to say because everyone deals with hard situations differently. I also think there is a big difference between how adults deal with something and how kids deal with something.

I think next time i'll say something else like "are you ok with the situation" or "if you need anyone talk to then you can talk to me" to help comfort the person. Does anyone have any other suggestions of what i could i say in this situation or has anyone had any similar situations?