Katie Taylor, CCLS Child Life On Call for SmileMakers Inc

Anything new and different could be stressful for children (and hey… adults, too!). When they are hospitalized, they often miss their bed, their toys, and their routines. The hospital isn't home, and it is hard. Now, imagine all of these new and different things and being asked to open wide, take a deep breath, or lay quietly while a procedure takes place. It makes an already hard procedure even more stressful. This is when a bag of tricks for a Child Life Specialist come into play.

I have found that SmileMakers makes some perfect things to help during these stressful and unnatural events for children. The "Look-For-It" Distraction Board is a must for all Child Life Specialists. This ocean-themed distraction board is gender neutral and helps take the child completely "away" from the hospital environment.

Something like this distraction board (and all the others SmileMakers offers) can be used for just about any hospital experience. In fact, I recently used it with a child that was having a hard time fasting before a procedure. The child was very upset that he could not eat or drink, and this board gave us something else to focus on.

Once we found all of the many undersea creatures on the board, I then was able to extend this activity with a few activities from the SmileMakers Child Life on the Go Beach Bundle.

The underwater sticker scene is a great extension to the distraction board and it's a great way to encourage a child to use their creativity to make their own distraction board! Once your patient is done, it's fun to have them lead you in finding the sea creatures they placed on their sticker scene.

How are you going to use the Child Life beach bundle this summer?