I was first drawn to Joseph P. Kahn’s story about clowns in children’s hospitals by the cute pictures — and the fact that my brother sometimes performs with a clown troupe at his church.
But what I especially appreciated learning from the article is that hospital clowning today is not just about getting a laugh out of a sick kid, important as that is. It’s also about giving children a little bit of control — to point out that the clown is doing something wrong, for example, or even to say the clown is not welcome and should go.
Kahn writes, “For hospital clowns Joyce Friedman and David Levitin, no two tours of duty are quite the same. Which is just how they like it.
“During rounds at Boston Medical Center, Friedman (a.k.a. Frizzle) and Levitin (Toodles) showed off their improv skills room by room, careful to assign an active role to each young patient they visited.
“At the bedside of 10-year old Cheyanne, the pair held a mock marriage ceremony, prompting Cheyanne to exclaim, through her oxygen mask, ‘You forgot to exchange vows!’ …
“Handed a joystick, a child might be encouraged to ‘control’ the clown as he or she chooses. Another patient, nervous or scared, might not want a visit at all. Either way, something positive comes from the encounter.
“ ‘Being empowered is really a key component of the healing process,’ says [Children’s Hospital endocrinologist Dr. Michael] Agus. ‘The more passive you are with an illness, the more challenging it is to heal.’ …
“Whatever a patient’s age or condition, said [clown Cheryl] Lekousi, she and her colleagues focus on the positive, even in the bleakest situations.
“ ‘Our message to the kids is, we’re a witness of you, of your childhood,’ said Lekousi.”
More here.
Photo: Dina Rudick/Globe Staff
Christopher reacts to the entrance of Cheryl Lekousi (a.k.a. Tic Toc).
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