Playing Hard: Why I Believe in my Job as a Child Life Activity Coordinator

She reared back her arm, and for a brief moment it lingered, then flung forward launching the sandy little shell into the bay. Squealing with delight, I couldn’t tell if she was more pleased with the plopping sound or the fact mommy got wet from the splash. I think the latter. My daughter is 2 years old. Flinging stuff into the air is about the most normal and thrilling thing to her right now. Recently, on my drive to work, I thought about my daughter throwing shells. I also thought about the children settled in the 36 patient rooms on the 9th floor hematology and oncology unit at Texas Children’s Hospital. Some of those children want to throw stuff, too. Others have a proclivity toward reading “Five Little Monkeys” five times in a row or wrestling with a sibling or racing Tonka trucks. Whatever the play penchant, my workday morning mind wonders, “How can I make it happen?” That’s my job. 

I am a child life activity coordinator. Sometimes Texas Children’s is home. For some families it’s home for days, weeks and months. I try to find opportunities for normalization to aid a child’s growth and development, family and peer interaction or simply happiness. My most valuable job tool: play. Child life activity coordinators design play-based programming and activities so patients can create, craft, sing, dance, play Connect 4, celebrate birthdays and live normally through play. If it is normal for a 2-year-old to throw, it is my job to think up a safe, playful way for that intrinsic nature to blossom in the hospital setting. 

The child life activity coordinator team oversees play programs in unit activity rooms, the Child Life Zone, Kids’ Own Studio and various other hallways, walkways and spaces in the hospital. When children can’t leave their room, we go in for bedside companionship and activities. Although child life activity coordinators have more time dedicated to it, we are by no means the only ones working hard at play. 

Parents are experts on their children and are my greatest inspiration as they know what their children like, don’t like and how they play. Parents transform patient rooms into play wonderlands, sometimes they use collections of new toys, other times with old favorites from home. Everything is there if I just listen and observe, like the patient’s favorite character on their pajamas or favorite color on their shoes. The likely source of it all: parents. There are also absolutely phenomenal child life specialists, nurses and physicians, therapists, administrators and teams of staff working for children at Texas Children’s and making every effort to lighten their load and brighten their day. 

Recently I was on an elevator in the hospital when a child declared it was her birthday. The entire lunchtime elevator launched into a rousing version of “Happy Birthday” concluding just upon reaching the little girl’s floor. “We’re in a pediatric hospital!” someone declared as the child and mom departed with smiles. As for throwing and how to make it happen, I found an opportunity, not with shells but a small rubber basketball. A father fighting for his upset 2-year-old son’s happiness took the ball and gave it one hard bounce to the ground to silence the screaming. I remember the mom's words as I left the room, “Throw the ball again!”