School children visiting nursing home - residents screaming!

[Albless]

My DF is in a nursing home - and some of the other residents scream and cry out. I can hear this when visiting my DF, and when windows are open it is very clearly audible from outside the building. I do find it distressing - and am also quite distressed by the reality that you just have to ignore it as the people who scream can't easily be comforted or settled as their dementia is so severe. Sadly, this is the difficult reality for residents, staff and visitors.

However, the nursing home hosts visits from local school children - primary school age. They tend to spend time with the residents are more able - frail rather than demented, and are usually downstairs where those residents are mostly located. My DF is upstairs and it really can be a very challenging environment at times with disturbed mobile, or would-be mobile, residents and those who scream and shout.

I know that there can be benefits for children and older people to spend time together, but after a recent visit by local children, I can't help thinking that a nursing home which cares for those who scream, shout and behave in unpredictable ways is not a suitable environment for such visits. Maybe a residential home or sheltered accommodation for those who are frail but otherwise competent, and capable of behaving appropriately would be a better place to visit.

What do you think? My DM thinks it's ok - but she's very deaf and very often doesn't hear the screaming. She didn't realise until I mentioned it that the screams and shouts can be heard from outside the building. The most recent visit from the children had them outside in the garden with some of the more able residents, so they would have been able to hear sounds of distress from open windows.

I don't know whether to mention it to the nursing home, or to the local education authority. Maybe the latter would be better as they have a duty of care and must have to complete a risk assessment before taking the children on a visit there.

I think it’s part of life unfortunately and I’m sure that the staff with the children take care to explain the situation to them.

Surely if it's taught properly to the children it's a good lesson about how some people get ill as they age and they shouldn't be scared of that?

I’m not sure this is something you need to concern yourself with - I’d imagine both the teachers involved and the nursing home staff are aware of the environment, and have made a decision based on their better knowledge of all the parties involved.

Don't you think it will be frightening for young children to be taken to a place where they hear people screaming? It would have freaked me out as a child. I don't like it as a middle-aged woman who understands what's going on!

The children don't have to be there.

This will be another thing for me to put in my advance directive.

As well as rejecting certain treatments, vaccines, etc if I become demented, I don't want unrelated children to see or hear me in that state.

I agree with you OP. My DD used to get taken on these visits when she was a toddler at a childminder and now she's actually really sensitive to hearing screaming from her brother and maybe this is why.

They don't "explain this to the kids" or any of the other excuses PPs are falling over themselves to give, they just take kids to nursing homes for the benefit of the residents. I thought it sounded really nice when it was explained to me but now after several visits I'm not sure what DD actually got out of it.

A better way of doing it is how DS's school does it - they recently brought the more able residents to their school. The kids were also a better age for it (4 and 5) and everyone seemed to get something out of it.

I'm in 2 minds about this. I also visited my grandparent in a nursing home and then my other beloved grandparent in a hospital with a lot of aged patients, both as a child and adult. It can be really scary and awful hearing all the screams and moans and seeing essentially people on their deathbeds. For an adult, let alone a child, as you say.

However if they are only interacting with the more able folks below... It feels kind of wrong to scrap it just for the sake of censoring unappealing reality. I suppose it feels like dehumanising and censoring the suffering/less abled people above. I assume this is what PPs above are reacting to. I don't know how I feel about this overall.

I would opt my child out of these visits personally

Before covid I went to a lovely playgroup with DS2 that was held in a care home. It was in the main living room of the home and consisted of singing nursery rhymes, playing instruments etc together with biscuits at the end. It was really lovely and both parties clearly enjoyed themselves. The carers only bought down people who wanted to come and knew what was going on.

I'm guesing the children's visit will be something similar. I doubt very much the children would be taken to rooms where people need complex care.

Also we never heard any screaming from the living room. Maybe the music and tambourines covered it?

Oops. Wrong thread

My DS was very scared when he visited a mixt frail/dementia home and so were some other children. I think it was hard to see adults not behaving like adults (dancing around, screaming, touching the children etc.). What's next- make them go to the psychiatric ward?

As well as rejecting certain treatments, vaccines, etc if I become demented, I don't want unrelated children to see or hear me in that state.

How do you think it could be prevented, if children are visiting their own relatives in the same location? They might hear you even if they don't see you.

The children obviously aren't taken to residents' rooms. And they are not in direct face-face contact with the more demented residents. It's less of an issue when they are in the downstairs lounge, as music etc would mask shouts etc, hopefully.

However, when windows are open screaming, shouting, loud groaning and wailing, can clearly be heard outside the building. There is a long glass-fronted balcony so in good weather the upstairs residents can sit out. This overlooks the garden where the children were on their recent visit, and one of the upstairs residents is currently grabbing the rail of the balcony to get out of his wheelchair - risking a fall, which would be seen from the garden below, and shouts out very loudly and persistently.

I just feel very uneasy about these visits. I suspect the school or education authority maybe don't realise that not all homes are the same, and that those with residents with later stages of dementia can be difficult places to be.

My DD has been to visit an elderly resident on respite care numerous times and I agree it can be very distressing to a young child. You'll get loads of people tell you that it's not an issue and the kids will be told all about it and not to worry etc but it is upsetting I'm afraid.

I agree with you op. Many children would
find that upsetting. The sights and sounds you see/hear when you visit a hospital or a nursing home are horrendous and I have to brace myself before I visit so I wouldn’t want to inflict that on my child.

Honestly I agree, it does not sound the right environment to be taking them too.

Good point.

I wouldn't want to be part of an organised visit by children unconnected to any of the residents. Not part of a school trip!

Care facilities that look after people with dementia are usually secure and would not be inviting school children.

I agree that being exposed to adults who are screaming and very unsettled is not a suitable school trip. Parents would have needed to give permission.

In the home my FIL is in, the dementia unit is quite separate to the main wing and visits to the main wing by children would be fine.

My kids visit a home as part of the school choir they stand in the garden and sing. The more able residents come out onto patio and less able get to listen through open windows.

I don’t think it’s terrribly hard to explain to children that some older people are very ill. Sometimes it is called a second childhood as lose capacity to do many things including talk / communicate and need lots of looking after like a young child.

It can be upsetting. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist and kids shouldn’t see
it/hear it/know about it.

We go too far to “protect” them from everything and they end up with no experience/resilience.

This is how I know you have never been to one properly before and are just talking out your arse. Even for adults born in poverty, orphaned as children, witnessing horrible deaths as children, etc (obviously referencing myself and others in my family) it can be pretty horrible sights/sounds. I understand and accept the viewpoint that kids don't need to be insulated from reality but your post definitely gives the impression you lack experience of this area.

That's the sort of thing I want to explain to my child, not for them to learn through exposure via a school trip, where let's be honest, the teachers will be focussed on counting heads, making sure the kids are where they're meant to be rather than using it as an opportunity to teach children about mental capacity.

My MIL recently died of dementia. My then 14 year old coped very well, but he chose not to visit her during her last months in a secure unit (under a Section).

I agree with you. My grandmother used to go for respite care at one and I hated going there to visit her. It was a depressing place. Even if it's explained to children, the more clever and sensitive ones will pick up that it's not a good vibe

I would be shouting too if a troupe of children invaded my safe space.