Some parents meet you, as if they are going to war.
Parents acting hostile
In very rare occasions, parents enter the hospital as if they are going to war, and they show immediately an aura of aggressiveness. This impacts very negatively on any encounter because the natural response to such behaviour would be reduced effectiveness on the side of the healthcare provider.
Why do they do that?
Often the underlying thought for some parents sounds like: “I have to stand up for my child, I am their only hope, nothing is provided without a fight.”
What to do now?
One solution for this aggressiveness, could lie in verbalising.
We would need to shift the attention from the hostility towards the problem we try to solve together: the child’s needs!
To achieve this, the health care provider first needs to disconnects from the parents emotionally. Before we answer, we would have to deal with our own emotions first. Although, the parents are allowed to be frustrated, frightened or sad about the situation, hey are not allowed to abuse us.
What is the effect of the aggressiveness?
Unfortunately, when we perceive threats, our “reptile-brain” goes immediately into freeze- or flight- or fight-mode, whatever suits our personality best. And this response would not help the treatment process.
We need to take care out our own emotional resonance to the parental actions. I have written on another blog about emotional professionalism. In essence, we need to be aware, that the parental actions reveals mainly something about them and not about us.
Professional response to hostility
We have to clearly state that the focus presently would be identifying the root cause of the health problem of the child. The further diagnostic and treatment plan is then provided as well-structured as realistically possible, while also taking uncertainties into account.
What is the typical response to calmness?
As soon as the parents see that their child is taken seriously without them fighting for it, they have a chance to calm down. Only when they calm down, connection – establishment of respect and finally engagement would become possible.
Shall we tell them afterwards?
Sometime, you want the parents to become more effective in their quest for help.
The parents are often unaware, that their strategy of intimidation and pushiness makes it more difficult to develop a fruitful treatment-relationship, but possibly this might be the only sort of relationship that they know: one where every communication is a battlefield with winners and losers, and they do not want to lose.
I have noted that it might even become possible, at the end of such a hostile encounter, to let the parents in on my perception of their action. The opening might be there, when the parent’s sense that they have achieved what they set out to get (e.g., a clear plan how to help their child). Then they might even become open for feed-back about their initial attitude.
In a nutshell:
For hostile parents it needs to be very clear, their child is at the core of all concerns, no fighting is needed to receive the available help. Additionally, state that their goal is a shared goal with the health care provider!
Previous post Next post
Podcast Real – life video Patient-feedback
Connect Respect Engage Extra tips Contact/About me
Communication lives on comments … fancy to share yours?