[Trying to maintain the equilibrium to serve their demands and take care of hospitalized children: the family experience].

The purposes of this qualitative study were to understand the meaning of the interactions experienced by the family during a child's hospitalization, identify the family's demands and construct a theoretical model representing this experience. Symbolic Interactionism was adopted as a theoretical and Grounded Theory as a methodological reference framework. Data were collected by means of observation and interviews with five families of children hospitalized due to acute disease with a good prognosis. The analysis identified two interactive phenomena: losing control of the functioning, which expresses the situations experienced by the families, which generate demands; and seeking a new functioning rhythm, which shows the strategies the family undertakes to take care of the hospitalized child and maintain its functioning. The identification of the central category and the construction of the Theoretical Model represent the meaning of the experience for families during the hospitalization of one of their children.