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Pediatric Massage
Forget the quiet, babbling brook music, scented flickering candles and a peaceful calm descending in the room and bring in the children!
September 16, 2009 By Linda Hickey RMT
Forget the quiet, babbling brook music, scented flickering candles and a peaceful calm descending in the room and bring in the children!
Touch, along its full spectrum, is a universal communication of attention and nurturing care. The new parent’s loving caress as they get to know their baby, mothers rubbing the backs of her troubled children, to the therapist’s focussed attention to treating an injured athlete’s knee, all lie along the continuum. The intention is always to be nurturing, be it the person, the nervous system or the tissues.
For the therapist considering pediatric massage, there is also a full spectrum of avenues to explore.
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Toddler years:
Attempting to work in traditional ways with toddlers will be challenging. It is the developmental task of this wonderful age group to move away, using their new motor skills to explore the world with the parent a safe harbour to return to for re-assurance and support. Touch can be given when they initiate and for only as long as they determine. Not always ideal within the constraints of a clinical setting.
Developing a range of resources like interesting hand toys, movement games and music may help momentarily, but it is more likely that we would be using a doll to demonstrate technique for the parents to try to integrate into their child’s daily routines. It is helpful if your teaching doll for this age group is size and appearance appropriate – ie: a “big” boy or girl. In this way you may
be able to engage a child in playing with you and be able to access brief hands-on moments to assess and then instruct the parents who will likely always be more successful in their massage than you.
Childhood years:
Once a child has mastered the full range of motor and exploration skills and has developed the language they need for satisfying communication of their needs, they transform into the massage therapists dream!
Attention and focus is primarily to voice, making creative and elaborate storytelling the therapist’s greatest tool for her accompanying hands.
Acting out on the child’s body dragons, unicorns or even a variety of weather patterns – whatever engages the child’s imagination and attention – becomes the backdrop for the massage.
With this age group we can be true to our primary focus of facilitating parents’ comfort and skills with massage and work directly with children, giving them the benefit of our direct attention simultaneously.
Last spring one of my regular clients approached me with concern of her five-year-old son’s over-activity and tendency to anxiety. She hoped massage might calm him, but needed help with figuring out what and how to do this at home.
While his mother watched quietly from the sidelines, I perched up on the table with John. Over the course of four half-hour sessions we created an ongoing narrative of the adventures of Pete and Pot – two prehistoric stegosaurus creatures and their good friend Sam the sabre toothed tiger. John enthusiastically helped me tell the story. He kept the names straight, while my hands acted out on his trunk and legs, the actions of stomping across the tundra and moving quietly towards the prey.
In the moments that we were discussing the finer details of what would happen next, my hands were busily yet quietly engaged in calming, centering, deep-breath encouraging strokes that his mother would mentally note and imitate at home.
In this family, the continuing saga has become the framework for some calm and centering time as needed throughout the day and before bed.
Integrating instructions for parents with treatment requires some practice. It is not unlike that childhood game of patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time.
Hints to Assist in Your Practice
Adapt your positioning: Adapt your time: Adapt your pressure: The experience of controlling what is done to their bodies becomes WORKing with parents: There may be times when children need more support from their parents I have a realistic child-sized rag doll, Annie, that becomes my child There are endless, fun ways to bring massage to families and children. There is yet another purpose in bridging the worlds of massage and Our massage is the way in which we work toward that future. |
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