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Anxiety of Mothers about Young Children
Parental anxiety is clearly shown in the following summary of
the experiences of a medical officer who also attended sessions for
two years at a children's out patient department.
Here the medical officer met the same mothers who attended the
local clinics, asking all the time the same questions and getting
the same answers. Not being convinced that the answers were true,
these mothers go from hospital to clinic and vice versa in an attempt
to get further advice or change the child into one they can accept.
In their view it is the child that must be changed but not themselves.
Liaison between the Hospitals and the Welfare Services
A medical officer of the Department (Dr. V. Tracey) reports
that at the end of two years as Clinical Assistant in a busy
children s out patient department an impression remains of great
similarity between the types of cases making frequent attendances
at hospitals and those commonly seen at the various Welfare Centre
sessions. When those children attending hospital because of serious
illness are eliminated, one is left with a large, familiar group of
conditions common to both - children suffering from recurrent
respiratory infections, particularly school entrants, the child who
won' t eat, or sleep, and children of all ages who show physical
symptons in response to the stresses and strains of growing up and