Background: Children who are critically ill are vulnerable and the nurse has a responsibility to meet the child`s needs in a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU).

Objectives: The aim was to explore the vulnerable child's participation and how it can be understood through the nurses’ perspective in the situated nursing care intervention. By exploring ways clinical supervisors facilitate the learning of the participation from critically ill children in a clinical environment  

Method: The study design was an exploratory inductive qualitative approach.  Data collection was done through observations and interviews. The data from the observations were analyzed through interpretive phenomenology. 

Findings: The affective elements were viewed as essential for learning to understand how children participate in the PICU and to develop professional competency. Three themes emerged through the analysis: Mediated participation, Bodily participation and Participation by proxy. They all highlight different aspect of the vulnerable child's way of participating in the nursing care given, through nurses awareness and situated salience.

Conclusion: The concept participation should be redefined and broadened; as participation can present itself through the child’s body in diverse ways.

Considerations: Confidentiality procedures were followed, ethical permission was given from the ethical komitee at KI, and all informants participated on an informed, independent and voluntary basis. The informants that chose to participate were informed that they could cease participation at any time.