Canopy Cancer Care Talk About How to Involve Your Children in Your Cancer Journey

Telling your children you have cancer, and working out how to involve them can be very challenging as a parent. Trish was concerned her 16 year old son would be quietly worrying about things and not verbalising that. Canopy Cancer Care’s Emma Moore tells parents it is very important to tell them something than nothing which can be more frightening. What children are inclined to do is make up their own story, which can be very scary.

Suzanne said she waited until a little bit later in the piece so that she could tell them what was going to happen, but not giving them too much information, rather letting them know the things that would affect them. Dr Richard Sullivan says that the main concern that people often have is that they want to be there for their kids and for their partner, yet you get the complete opposite when you talk to the family. They want to look after their loved one.

Lucy says that if children don’t have all the information they tend to fill in the gaps, so it is important to keep them in the loop. You need to think about the time and the place that you are going to pass this information on to the children, and it needs to be somewhere they feel safe, somewhere like the home environment where they feel comfortable. It can also help to older and younger children separately, and have a ‘one on one’ with the older child. You should also allow plenty of time to answer questions.

It is also a good idea to wait for the diagnosis, even when you have found out that you have cancer, so then you can sit your child down and calmly tell them the story. It is also important to be honest when they ask questions as depending on the journey, it is going to be hard. Just deal with things as they come and just be open.

For more information on private cancer care Auckland, functional oncology and chemotherapy NZ please go to http://www.canopycancercare.co.nz .