Helping children understand cancer

hello I'm Neil I'm a psychotherapist here at bupa when someone receives a cancer diagnosis it can suddenly throw up all Challenges sorts of challenges and questions things such as what will the best treatment plan be for me how much time might I need to have off work and financial implications but perhaps one of the most difficult challenges is how do I share this news with my loved ones and particularly should I and how do I share that information with my children now many parents understandably uh think the the the best approach is not to to tell their their child about their their illness and of course the intention Intention there is to protect the child as best as as best as they can but as I'm sure you'll know children are very perceptive and the inevitable anxiety and tension that you may be feeling that will be in the atmosphere in the house and you know without the your son or daughter knowing the reason for that their anxiety will uh increase they may become confused even start to feel responsible for for that beginning to think it's their fault that you're uh looking tense or or Planning worried so if you do decide to uh have this conversation um maybe take some time to plan it have a have a think about what time of the day you're going to going to talk about it where you're going to talk about it who might be there will you just be on your own with your child maybe you would want other people there and even what sort of support you might want to have in place for them afterwards um as they think through what you've what you've shared with them another useful thing to to Talking to the teacher think about would be talking to the school maybe having a conversation with the teacher to let them know that you you have you've had this conversation uh with your child and I think that can be helpful because it's useful for the school to if they're observing some unusual behavior from your son or daughter uh that gives them some context and some some reasoning behind it now Asking questions you may well be asked lots of questions some of those questions you you won't know the answer to um and in that case I would say be honest and say so but that you will find you'll find out for them and seek out the advice of a professional now there may also be Future questions questions about the future uh questions that you simply um at the current moment cannot answer but rather than close down that conversation I think it's a good idea if you can bring the focus to the here and now and talk about the present talk about your treatment how that how that's working what that's about for Paper and crayons younger children it can be a good idea to have some papers and crayons available when you're when you're talking to them young children often find it much easier to express difficult feelings or confused feelings by drawing so I think that can be a good idea to to have those available for older children um often Research they may want to research your illness on the internet I think it's important to proceed with caution there's a lot of false information out there that could really lead to increased anxiety so perhaps even think about agreeing a rule with your child that if they do want to research your illness that you'll do that together and of course only by accessing reliable sources here at B we Bikal have created a series of booklets called I know someone with cancer and these booklets are designed for 7 to 11 year olds written in a language that we believe they can relate to and they are intended to explain cancer and also describe the the treatments that are involved now these booklets also give children advice on dealing with their feelings even some fun things there around games and activities that you as a family can do together um both at home and even during hospital visits and you Summary could give the booklet to your son or daughter to read by themselves the wrong Pace or you could use it as a guide for you sitting down with your with your child and working through together these booklets are available free for you to download uh from our website that's .

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uk I know someone with cancer