BREAST CANCER/PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS: HOW BEST TO HELP OUR CHILDREN
There are a few basic themes for how best to help our children cope during the time of our diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer.
? Never lie to your children. If you don’t know the answer to a question, say so.
? If your child/ren ask you if you are going to die from your breast cancer, it is honest and right to say no. Most women with breast cancer do well. If it eventually turns out that you are not so fortunate, there will be plenty of time to talk about that and to prepare your children. No one ever dropped dead from breast cancer, and right now what your children need most is to be reassured and comforted. Fears about your future health belong in discussions between you, your husband, and your adult family and friends, not in conversations with your young children. They have more than enough to deal with just now.
? Explain what is happening in words age-appropriate for each child. Children are excellent observers but terrible interpreters of what they see around them. Even though you may be trying to protect them by not talking about your experience, their fantasies are probably much worse than the reality. A good model of communication can be the way you have talked with them about sex. In both cases, you are using honest and age-appropriate language and hoping to make the subject safe and acceptable for future conversations.
? Try to keep their lives and their routines as normal as possible. For more than ten years now, Hester has been part of a longitudinal study of children of women with breast cancer. Regardless of the age of the children or the specifics of the mother’s illness, the consistent finding has been that children who are given honest information in age-appropriate language and whose own routines are not disrupted unnecessarily do fine.
? Remember to tell the appropriate person (teacher, guidance counselor, principal, etc.) at the child’s school what is happening at home. This also applies to coaches, music teachers, or other adults who are part of the child’s life.
* Whatever their ages, your children will take their cues from you. If you are straightforward and positive about your diagnosis and treatment, they will be, too.
? Do not be. surprised or hurt if your children quickly become blase about your diagnosis. This means you are doing a good job!
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