Reframe the Pain: A Parent-Led Intervention to Alter Children's Memories for Pain

Parents and youth in the intervention group will receive instructions about adaptive ways of reminiscing about the in-hospital and post-surgery periods. The intervention will draw from existing narrative-based interventions that have taught parents to reminisce with their children about past negative events in more elaborative and emotion-rich ways (e.g., using more open-ended questions, to follow in on children's answers by providing new details about the event, to talk more about emotions, and to praise children's answers).

Parents and youth in the attention control group will watch a neutral 20-minute video that is not related to surgery (Planet Earth). Importantly, they will not talk about pain or the past surgery experience.