Our results support the benefit of introducing a distracting environment during minor painful procedures in children: the higher pain level reported by children during mothers' efforts at distraction shows the difficulty mothers have in interacting positively at a difficult moment in their children's life. This does not mean that the mothers' presence is negative: although it does not reduce pain, the children will recall that they were not left alone on a stressful occasion. As in all studies in which a patient is requested to score their own pain during a procedure with the help of a non‐maskable analgesic tool, this study was not blinded and this was one of its limits.