Hospice care is end of life care, and as such is often difficult for patients and their relatives. Does it make sense to “protect” relatives who are children from being exposed to hospice, and eventually death? The experts at Suncrest Home Health and Hospice in Chicago want to offer you our advice and opinions on children visiting relatives in hospice.
Protecting the Children
For parents and caregivers, protecting children is instinctive. You tell them not to touch a hot stove, play near the street, get too close to the edge. They’re young, small, vulnerable and they rely on adults to help them grow up safely.
But there’s protecting and there’s overprotecting. If children don’t make mistakes and learn to make their own good choices, they will never function well as adults.
There are many gray areas in raising children. If your child’s grandparent is in hospice, should you allow them to visit? Or will this be traumatic for the child?
Visiting Relatives in Hospice
An important consideration when debating whether to take children to visit a relative in hospice is how close the child was to the relative. If the child and the grandparent were very close, seeing each other daily or multiple times per week, the child will be distressed if they are suddenly no longer allowed to see their relative, much the same way they would if the relative had died.
The reason often given for keeping the child away is to spare them the pain and grief of seeing their relative so sick. But this doesn’t necessarily work. After all, if you did not visit your relative in hospice, you would be spared some pain as well, but you would also feel sad you missed their final days.
Not allowing a child to say goodbye to a dying relative deprives them of an important experience. Prepare your child ahead of time if your relative has declined a great deal since the last time they saw them. Tell them grandma or grandpa is tired and may not wake up while you are there, but they might still be able to hear what visitors say to them.
Hospice Care Isn’t Scary
Hospice is not like a hospital. There are no machines beeping and emergency personnel are not rushing around frenetically. The purpose of hospice is to allow people to live out their last days and weeks in peace and tranquility.
It may make your child feel sad that their relative is no longer able to get up and play with them, but death is a part of life, and not allowing them to see it does not mean they don’t experience it, it just means they don’t understand it fully.
When a child is not given details about an important event, they will make guesses and fill in the details themselves. More often than not, these guesses will be inaccurate and much scarier than reality.
The hospice nurses, social workers and therapists at Suncrest Home Health and Hospice of Chicago have worked with dying patients and their families for many years and have much experience helping them cope with death. If you need assistance or advice about how to prepare a child for visiting a relative in hospice, contact us. We’re here to help.
