Photo: Christine Shields Corrigan

Telling children that a parent has cancer is one of the most difficult things a newly diagnosed parent must face. For starters, there’s no one or “right” way to have this conversation. Every family copes with life’s challenges uniquely. As a two-time cancer survivor, wife, and mom of three children, here are some of my thoughts about “telling the kids” based on my experiences.

At first blush, a parent’s instinct may be to avoid telling the children in order to protect them. When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer four years ago, my children were ages 19, 15, and 10, my husband and I decided that we would tell them when we had all of the relevant information—diagnosis, treatment plan, prognosis—so that we would be on the same page and could deal with the news together. It seemed like a logical plan at the time, but for various reasons, it didn’t work out as I’d hoped. In fact, my plan to share the information at one time made a difficult and stressful time much harder. Instead of trying to control the narrative, I should have shared the information, particularly with my teenage children, as I received it. 

In addition, as a practical matter, it’s hard to keep cancer a secret. Children know when secrets are being kept. They’ll pick up on their parents’ worry, anxiety, and hushed voices and wonder what is being kept from them. Understandably then, kids might believe that whatever is happening is too awful to talk about, which in turn might make them feel isolated from the very people who are supposed to care for them.

Another problem with not telling children about a cancer diagnosis is that, if their parents don’t tell them, they’ll inevitably hear it elsewhere. A classmate or a neighbor might say something, not knowing that the news hasn’t been shared. Now, the children may find themselves in the bewildered space of not knowing what to believe and questioning whether they can trust their parents.

There’s no getting around it—children need to be told about a parent’s cancer diagnosis. However, before having these painful and hard conversations, take some time to plan what to say. Talk to a spouse, partner, therapist, or a health care professional. Consider writing down important points so you can pay attention to your children’s reactions. Be prepared for your children to ask whether you will die. It was the first question my younger son asked. In response, I explained that my cancer was caught early, that I would have surgery and chemotherapy to get better, and that I had great doctors taking care of me. Also, don’t be afraid of being emotional. It’s okay to cry together. It’s okay to admit that this is a frightening time, but reassure them that the family will get through it together.

How much information to share depends on the children’s ages. In general, children aged eight years or younger don’t need detailed information, while older children and teens will want to know more. However, according to the American Cancer Society, at a minimum, children should be told the following:

  • the name of the cancer (e.g. breast cancer, lung cancer, lymphoma)
  • the location of the cancer in the body 
  • the type of treatment 
  • a simple explanation of side effects
  • how their lives might be affected 

When naming the cancer, it may be helpful to use a doll, stuffed animal, book, or drawing to show or preschoolers and school-aged children where the cancer is. Young children are concrete thinkers so they likely will focus on the outside effects of the disease, such as hair loss or weight changes. Tell the children that they didn’t cause the parent’s cancer. Nothing they did or didn’t do caused their parent to get this disease—it’s not their fault. Parents should assure their children that cancer isn’t contagious and let them know that it’s okay to hug and show affection for each other.

Parents need to be honest about any changes that may happen to their children’s day-to-day lives. For example, children should be told that the parent might be away from home for several hours a day so that he or she can the treatment they need to get better. Family and friends may provide meals because the parent may be too tired to cook. Classmates’ or teammates’ parents may take children to and from school, sports, or other activities. Grandparents or other relatives or friends may stay with the children if the parent has to go to the hospital. The sick parent might need extra help with chores. By letting the children know this information upfront, the changes in their routines may be less upsetting.

Parents need to give their children time to absorb and process this news and therefore should be prepared to have more than one cancer conversation. Keep the lines of communication open and encourage children to ask questions and share their concerns. Try to have these conversations during a quiet time without interruptions so that the kids feel that they’re being heard. If parents don’t know the answer to their children’s questions, tell them that and follow-up later with an explanation. 

And above all else, remind children that they are now and always loved. Cancer will never change that.

Christine Shields-Corrigan
Tinybeans Voices Contributor

Christine Shields Corrigan, a two-time cancer survivor, wife, and mom, gives voice to the beautiful ordinary in her lyrical and practical essays. Her work about family, illness, writing, and resilient survivorship has appeared in a number of outlets

 

 

In honor of Movember, and in an effort to bring attention to men’s health issues, I wanted to share how Prostate Cancer and cancer in general has affected my life. This article has been challenging for me to write, I am not sure if it is because it is such a big topic and it is a pretty emotional to put it into words or if it is that I have so many thoughts about it, that I am not sure how to narrow it down. Probably a little bit of both. Naively, I never thought it would happen to us, but of course I was wrong.

Prior to 2014 my life was cancer free, my first interaction with cancer was when my mom told me she had lung cancer, luckily it was detected early and with surgery it was removed and she is now cancer free. After that incident, I felt that was as close as I really needed to get to cancer. Then in September of 2014 we found out my husband, Andrew, had Prostate Cancer. This was discovered after he had been back and forth to doctor appointments all year long, which began because he was unable to urinate while we were traveling in Hawaii in January of that year, appointment after appointment, taking one medication after another, finally to have a doctor take a biopsy of his prostate to learn what was going on and why his issues wouldn’t stop. Luckily, similar to my mom, my husband’s cancer was found early, the cancer detected was small but treatment was challenging because he is in his early 40’s and his options had a bigger effect on his life than they would if the cancer would have been found when he was older, like in his 70’s or 80’s which is more common. In the end, he had his prostate removed which took care of the cancer. After months of recovery, the doctors gave Andrew the all clear to continue with our plan to travel around the country in our camper – something we had been planning way before cancer ever showed up in or lives. We traveled, cancer free for 9 months with our girls and lived an amazing adventure. Then we came back and at my husband’s first follow up appointment with his doctor after the trip, the doctor determined something was not right. After some uncomfortable procedures and out-patient surgeries we found out that Andrew now had urethral cancer. Seriously, Cancer – can you give us a break?

When we found out about the Prostate Cancer there was so much research and information to learn about it, it’s one of the most common cancers out there. Urethral Cancer – not so much. In fact, Urethral cancer is rare is the most rare of all urological cancer. The doctors said that there are volumes of medical documents on Prostate Cancer and maybe four pages on Urethral Cancer. The summer after our trip consisted of more doctor appointments and surgeries. The last surgery, in September was the last one, for now, that removed the cancer they found. The doctors are hopeful, but not 100% certain that all the cancer was removed and Andrew will go back after Christmas and every three months moving forward to have his urethra checked for any more of those nasty cancer cells. My wish for Christmas is to have my husband 100% cancer free and to have an uneventful and healthy New Year.

Hopefully this article will be read by both men and women, but likely it will be read by a few more women than men. So for anyone reading this if you are a man or if you have a man in your life, husband, partner, brother, father, anyone with a prostate, if they can’t pee, they should talk to a doctor, if it’s difficult to pee, if there is blood in the pee or it hurts when they go, these are signs that there might be a problem. These problems were not going away with all the help the doctors were giving my husband, so they did the biopsy and found cancer. Luckily, all this was found early and surgery has been all the treatment he has needed, hopefully we are at the end of this cancer journey and we can go on living healthy, normal lives.

What I have learned about cancer through this journey is that cancer doesn’t really care what you have planned, it doesn’t care if you do everything right either. You can be super healthy, eat right, exercise and take your vitamins and cancer can still find you. You can be completely average, minding your own business and it’ll find you.  It doesn’t care if you have kids and a family and if you really don’t have time. When cancer comes around it takes center stage and you live your life around it. These days we try and incorporate the foods that are found to fight cancer and inflammation and try our best to keep stress levels down (which is challenging), but in the end we just try and live our best and happiest life, because cancer really doesn’t give a crap what you do, it will find you if it wants to. And with that in mind, we will continue to fight it and cherish each day, say our prayers and eat our vegetables and hope that our journey with cancer is behind us.

I am a mom, a writer, traveler, runner and yogi.  I love the outdoors and am adjusting to re-entry from 9 months traveling in a truck camper around the US and Canada with my family. I am excited to share my travels, stories and perspectives on parenting in the city.