Therapeutic Activities for Children and Teens Coping with Health Issues

Robyn Hart, Judy Rollins

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780470933541
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

Winner of the American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year 2011 (Category: Maternal And Child Health)

Building on children's natural inclinations to pretend and reenact, play therapy is widely used in the treatment of psychological problems in childhood. This book is the only one of its kind with more than 200 therapeutic activities specifically designed for working with children and teenagers within the healthcare system. It provides evidence-based, age-appropriate activities for interventions that promote coping. The activities target topics such as separation anxiety, self-esteem issues, body image, death, isolation, and pain. Mental health practitioners will appreciate its "cookbook" format, with quickly read and implemented activities.

Chapter 1

Separation and Stranger Anxiety

Courtesy of Steven Koress Photography

Young humans, perhaps more than any species, are exquisitely dependent organisms. The child needs reliable, loving attachment figures for normal social, emotional, behavioral, linguistic, and cognitive development. As such, children's separation distress, as well as their attachment behaviors (e.g., proximity seeking and displays of emotional distress in response to separation), are not only understandable but seen as necessary for survival.

Children may be separated from their parents for a variety of reasons, including parental separation or divorce; a parent's or child's illness, treatment, or hospitalization; child welfare involvement, such as foster or kinship care; disaster; incarceration of a parent; or military deployment; among others. Factors associated with parental separation, such as maternal depression, intimate partner violence, and parental substance abuse, have been shown to affect children's development and cognitive functioning (Black et al., 2002; Kernic et al., 2002). Jee and colleagues (2008) report that urban children who have experienced separation from a parent may have more learning difficulties at entrance to kindergarten. Separation from parents, regardless of the circumstances, can prove extremely stressful for the developing child.

List of Activities

Activity 1.1 ABCD News via Skype

Activity 1.2 All About Me

Activity 1.3 Bulletin Board

Activity 1.4 CD Postcards

Activity 1.5 Doorknob Signs

Activity 1.6 No-Sew Pillow

Activity 1.7 Funny Family Fotos

Activity 1.8 No Tick-Tock Clock

Activity 1.9 People Important to Me Tree

Activity 1.10 The People Match Game*

Activity 1.11 Pop Art Photo Tints

Activity 1.12 Rubber-Stamped Stationery

Activity 1.13 Scavenger Hunt

Activity 1.14 Special-People Chain

Activity 1.15 Staff Mix-Up

Activity 1.16 Steps to Staying Connected

Activity 1.17 The Key to Making the Best of the Situation*

Activity 1.18 The People I Live With

Activity 1.19 Unit Scrapbook

Activity 1.20 Warm Wishes Tree

Note: Asterisk (*) denotes that the activity is available on the CD that accompanies this book.

Separation Anxiety

Separation anxiety is a developmental stage during which children experience anxiety when separated from the primary caregiver, usually the mother. Separation anxiety is a normal occurrence between about 8 and 14 months of age. Some degree of separation anxiety is a good thing; it indicates that the child has developed healthy attachments to parents.

However, during the last half of the 20th century, a large body of literature developed that describes the difficulties hospitalized children, separated from their parents, experience (Bowlby, 1960; Quinton & Rutter, 1976; Robertson, 1958; Vernon, Schulman, & Foley, 1966). The research denotes the seriousness of separation anxiety for hospitalized children, including those beyond the age of 14 months, when “normal” children are placed in an “abnormal” situation in a strange environment without the presence and support of their parents. A recent study at a pediatric hospital during a two-week period found that about one third of children were sometimes unaccompanied (Roberts, 2010).

Unlike being separated from parents while at school or summer camp, children in the hospital face a variety of experiences that are truly scary and often painful or uncomfortable. Just the number of strangers children see can be overwhelming for any child. Strangers may be especially difficult for the child in the age group where separation anxiety and stranger anxiety coincide with a new intellectual skill, called object permanence (approximately 8 to 15 months), when the child now remembers objects and people that are not present. However, because in the hospital strangers often come to “do” something unpleasant or painful, even older children become very anxious when they see another unfamiliar face.

Separation anxiety is considered the primary source of stress for middle infancy through preschool-age children (ages 6 months through 3 years) who are hospitalized (Pearson, 2005). Although preschoolers can tolerate bri...