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Home › Articles › Nutrition and Health › White Coat Anxiety

White Coat Anxiety

9 Ways to Make Doctor's Visits Less Traumatic

By Nancy Vondrak

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  • Let your toddler role-play going to the doctor with you. Groner advises parents to purchase a toy medical kit for their child to play with at home. "Let your child be the doctor and give you pretend shots, check your throat and examine your ears. This helps him to master his own fear," she says.

    Mary Rowinski, a mother of six children from Independence, Ohio, says, "We play doctor constantly with stuffed animals being the patients. We're also starting to play dentist now, too!"

  • Portray your child's pediatrician as a helpful, friendly person. Talk about the doctor with your toddler. "I describe the doctor as a person who has a family and is a mommy or daddy, too," Rowinski says.

  • Read books about going to the doctor to your toddler. "It's amazing how quickly this helps children relate in a positive way," says Dr. Charles Griffin, a pediatrician in suburban Cleveland. He recommends finding a book that features a character that your toddler enjoys, such as Barney or Big Bird.

    Although she reads children's books such as The Berenstain Bears Go to the Doctor by Stan and Jan Berenstain, Rowinski has found some less traditional books to also be helpful. "Some books about doctors that I've read to my children aren't really storybooks," she says. "But they have a lot of real life pictures of doctors doing things that real doctors do." Two of these books that Rowinski owns are Doctors Help People by Amy Moses and I Can Be a Doctor by Rebecca Hankin.

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