Preschoolers and Meds?

Question

Ok, if you are under doctors orders to give your preschooler medicine, but she refuses, kicking and screaming, what can you do?? Is the only option to force feed her the medicine? And isn't that considered child abuse?

Answer 1

Talk to your child let her know that you understand that the med is yucky. Tell if she will take it quick and then drink some juice or bite a strawberry or something that she really likes that it will not be as bad. Is this med a liquid can you get it in pill form instead? My son is 3 and has to take a pill every morning. I was very surprised the first time he took and got it. He puts it on his tongue then drinks some milk and it is gone. I have only had problems with him taking meds once and the liquid was just too strong so I mixed it with two tablespoons of juice. He drank it right down. Use force as a last resort. You want her to be comfortable taking meds.

Answer 2

Is this your offspring? Talk to the doctor about other forms of the medication and other ways of administering it. Is it a pill (pills are very hard for little kids to swallow even if they are small) can it be a liquid, can it be crushed into a powder or added to juice? Once you begin to have to force feed her the job will be locked in as a force-feeding situation.

Ask a parent whos child has to undergo regular invasive procedures to keep them alive what they do. The child regularly starts to cry a day (even days) befor the event, the parents start to cry, everybody cries, tempers frey, your heart breaks.

In the end you do what you must do for your childs medical survival and thats all that can be said about it, even if they tell you they hate you and seriously mean it, even if you weep rivers of tears while doing it, you do it.

Would it be considered child abuse? Ask the doctor, if it is doctor ordered I would not think so, with the proviso its your offspring.

Answer 3

Is this a preschool setting? There's limits on what you're allowed to do. With your kids, you can uses stickers and buy them a toy or force it down them but with other's kids, you can't.

I taught preschool to pay for both my graduate and my undergraduate. What I'd do is call the parent's if they refused. If it were my kid, you hold them down, put the medicine in and BLOW ON THEIR FACE. It makes them swallow.

I'm a social worker and this isn't abuse. :) However, not giving your child medicine is abuse. It's called medical neglect.

Answer 4

What kind of medicine is it? It is possible for you to put the medicine in food if the taste of the meds isn't too strong, but tricking your child into taking medications isn't going to teach her that it is going to make her better. Keep reinforcing that the medicine is going to make her better, and without it she might get sicker. It isn't going to work after the first time telling her this, so keep saying it. She'll come around eventually.

Answer 5

I worked in a therapeutic learning center for children with behavior and emotional problems, and many of the children took their medicine hidden in food or drink. If your child had a terrible case of bronchitis and wouldn't take his penacillin, what would you do? You would find some other way to get it into him, right?Just make sure you put it in somethng the child will eat all of. If you put it in his milk and he only drinks three sips, it didn't work!

Answer 6

Get a chart and some stickers. Each time she take her medicine, put a sticker up. When she gets 5 stickers, take her out and get her a new, inexpensive toy or stuffed animal.

Answer 7

Make it clear that some children have to take the same medicine rectally and it's only because you love her dearly that you wish to spare her the trauma and embarassment.

Answer 8

No it isn'abusive to force her to take it. If she won't take it try putting it in her juice.