An Edinburgh mum has come up with a unique and creative way to distract her child when taking a coronavirus test at the doctors.
The box, which is filled with uncooked rice and marbles, acts as a seeking game for her daughter while she is swabbed for Covid.
Posting on a popular Edinburgh community page, the mum, who wishes to remain anonymous, wrote: "Just taken my nearly five year old for a PCR.
"The last time we did one in the test centre, it was a traumatic hour for both of us, ending in failure and having to borrow a doctor friend to help us do a home test.
"This time, we took our ‘magic box’, which I’ve posted about previously after using it successfully for a home test, with a friend helping too.
"Today we managed on our own and were in and out in 10 minutes, nostrils successfully swabbed for 8 seconds each.
"She didn’t enjoy it and complained, but the hands stayed busy in the magic box and she definitely wasn’t traumatised. Job done and really very painlessly."
The mum also said that the strategy is adapted from one a friend used with her young daughter when she had to have regular blood samples taken.
She had consulted a child psychologist, who said that a distraction task must start before the procedure, finish after it and fully engage and captivate the child, using multiple senses if possible.
And so the magic box was created, which is a small shoe-box type container, filled with rice and marbles.
The challenge is to forage through the rice to find the marbles, and the more the child finds, the better the prize becomes at the end.
The mother added: "Prizes as bribes alone has not worked with my daughter - she simply couldn’t override the fight impulse as soon as the test began, no matter how positive and ready she was beforehand.
"But this challenge and the time pressure distracted her enough to make the test tolerable."
