Honey Bunny Had No Tail: A Tale of Children's Experiences in a Hospital

摘要

Within our society, hospitals have a very functional purpose as places where individuals go to rehabilitate themselves in times of emergency or necessity. In general, their suffering and distress, while hospitalized, puts the body into a state of continuous stress while negatively impacting their emotional state. It is more so when the patients are young children. Many hospitalized children, and their parents find themselves constantly in a position of worry and this mental anguish has a considerable effect on their thoughts, emotions, and subsequent behaviors. The idea that humor, laughter, and play can exert positive benefits on a patient's mental and physical health is now widely recognized. And so, in 1992, the Bear Theatre was constructed at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto, Canada and thus began the 'journey' of Tails: a Fairy Tale on Furry Tails. This is a musical play combining storytelling, humorous insight, singing, dancing, audience interaction, and a message for the sick children and their families that although they are sick, and possibly different from other, healthy children, they are unique, valuable, and can tum their illness into a valuable asset. For our study, children were interviewed along with their parents before and after they watched the play, and were asked why they chose to attend the play, what they found particularly interesting, which of the characters they identified with, and what the play meant to them. The children, almost unanimously expressed their joy at the play, understood its message, found the part where the unfortunate and socially inept bunny gets to go to space, the most exciting, and while these children were undergoing difficult, demanding and often painful medical procedures, they laughed at the Tuffiuck character who is "shaking with fear" when a huge needle is used to saw on his tail.