Children helping with care

Sometimes questions arise over whether children should be involved in helping with any care you might need:

• • In general, our recommendation would always be to avoid giving children responsibility for providing care to parents on a long-term basis
  • Your care needs should always be met by professional carers, or adult family members if this is your choice. 

But children often like to be involved in helping you with small tasks, as part of their natural wish to help and show you their affection:

• • For instance, they may like to push your wheelchair, help you by fetching objects you cannot reach and so on.
  • Older children may wish to be involved in more formal aspects of care, for instance learning how to arrange your hands.

There are no hard and fast rules about this and often it will depend on what you as a family feel comfortable with:

• • The main things to consider are to make sure your child is comfortable with the task and able to handle it – physically, intellectually and emotionally

It is important to avoid the parent-child relationship becoming reversed.   

• • Sometimes children take on a parental role if a parent is away or injured
  • This might show up as a desire to carry out some of your care. 
  • But remember that this can be a burden to children in the long run
  • It is important for them to be reassured that you are still the parent and are there to take care of them, even when you are in hospital.