“Mommy my tummy hurts.”

How is Mommy going to respond?

It depends on who Mommy is who the child is and how the family culture expresses itself regarding health issues. Families have their own unique “sickness models” — ways of perceiving and dealing with illness. Let’s look at some typical sickness models and see how they impact on parents and children.

This Symptom Could Be Serious

A very common reaction to symptoms of illness is fear. “What is this lump or pain? Is it a sign of deadly disease?” A person might worry about him or herself or about other family members. Extreme worriers — those who assume the worst about every physical symptom — may be suffering from the disorder called hypochondriasis. The hypochondriac is one who misinterprets minor bodily symptoms such as palpitations rashes stomach or head pain etc. as signs of serious illness often rejecting their doctors’ reassurances to the contrary. (Contrary to popular opinion hypochondriacs are not people who imagine that they are sick; rather they imagine — without basis — that their sickness is fatal.)

Because minor bodily symptoms are a recurring common experience throughout the lifespan a person with this sickness model tends to suffer frequent intense stress. Moreover if this person is a parent he or she may be passing on a stressful sickness model to the children. Some forms of therapy are effective in reducing the anxiety characteristic of hypochondriasis including CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique).

Attention Nurturance and Illness

Although it’s no fun being sick there can be some benefits. Time off of school or work trips to a caring health professional special attention and nurturing at home — these perks have powerful reinforcing effects. Some people actually get more positive attention when they are ill than when they are well. When this happens the importance of illness can become exaggerated; every symptom (and its treatment) becomes a topic of conversation and every ounce of interest and concern is extracted from the listener. Illness acquires an “excitement” factor: “You won’t believe what the doctor said … and then we had to try fourteen different medications before we got one that worked … and the side effects of the medication created another disorder that needed another treatment …”

Indeed those who seek recognition and emotional support through the venue of illness may find themselves making a “career” of their sicknesses as if illness itself is the point of life. The tendency to use sickness to achieve certain goals can start quite young. Parents can help their children avoid an illness orientation to life by ensuring that they give equally intense nurturing to the healthy child as to the one who has the flu equal attention to the sick child’s normal accomplishments as to that child’s pain and suffering (i.e. even a chronically ill child is a whole person with other things going on besides physical symptoms). They can try to meet a child’s needs for rest and relaxation without insisting that the child be ill in order to receive downtime. In addition  parents can place their own illnesses in a secondary position vis-à-vis their own healthy endeavors so that kids see that the goal of life is optimal functioning — even when ill.

Tough It Out

On the other extreme of the spectrum are families who have no time for illness. In such a family a child with intense pain or suffering may be ignored or discounted. “I know your foot hurts but we’ve got a long way to walk yet so just stop complaining and move on.” Children’s initial symptoms may blossom into true medical issues by virtue of neglect: “And it turned out that my foot was broken in three places but they never even took me to the hospital until I passed out …”. Parents may ignore their own bodies as well as their children’s suffering from various aches and ailments until their disease process threatens their ability to function or their very life.

Children can feel extreme resentment toward parents who failed to take proper care of themselves experiencing that self-neglect as a form of abandonment. Similarly they may feel intense anger and hurt at being discounted when they themselves needed medical care and/or simple nurturing. Children may also come to resent “medical secrets” — illnesses in the family that are hidden and not discussed openly (in ways appropriate for their stages of development). They may learn that illness is something bad a part of life that can’t be embraced. Such ideas will limit their ability to work with their own illnesses and those of family members. While it is unnecessary to “celebrate” pain and illness it is important to acknowledge and address familial sickness to pay close attention to children’s health concerns and to signs and symptoms generated by one’s own body.

When dealing with pain or illness balance is the key.