What Will I Tell My Children?

No matter what ages your children are, whether they are small or full grown adults, the question of how to tell them that you have cancer is a difficult one.  Parents, especially mothers, are the caregivers, the protectors, the ones who keep the world safe.  It's hard to tell your children that you have been diagnosed with a disease that could make you sick and possibly kill you.  It can be hard to put yourself in the position of needing rather than giving care. 

Y-ME Peer Counselors have been in your position.  They have all survived breast cancer and faced the challenges of how to talk to their children.  Their advice:  First, be honest.  What you tell a child and how much will depend a great deal on the child's age, but regardless of how much information you give them about your disease and its treatment, you should always be honest.

"Kids, even when they are very young, sense when something is wrong," says Kelly, who was diagnosed when her children were one and seven.  "I think you have to tell a child as much as he or she can handle.  That gives them some sense of control over what is happening in their lives."

"I was very honest with my children," says Andrea, whose children were fifteen and seventeen when she was diagnosed.  "They were at an age when they could understand what was happening.  Not telling them would have made them think things were worse than they were."

"When I was first diagnosed, I didn't tell my daughter. I thought I was protecting her,"  says Sammie.  "She was in high school and after a while she came to me, and said, 'what's up with you, mom.  You have cancer, don't you.'  She had been talking with a friend at school whose mother had been through breast cancer, and figured it out."

"My daughter was in college," says Judy, "and when I told her, she just cried and cried, but we got past that. Our relationship is stronger now than it was before I was diagnosed."

The Y-ME Peer Counselors point out that children of all ages talk to each other and they will get information from their peers, especially if they aren't getting it from their parents.  Very often, that may come in the form of hearing about a relative who has died of cancer.  It can be very important to help children realize that cancer doesn't always mean death, that many people recover and survive.

Kelly took a very active approach to addressing her cancer with her daughter who was seven at the time.  She wanted her daughter to feel that she had an active role in what was happening.  On Halloween, when Kelly was receiving chemotherapy and losing her hair, they held a costume party at which Kelly, her daughter and all her friends wore wigs.  Her daughter also became the top child fundraiser for the Y-ME Walk in their hometown, exchanging small bags of homemade cookies for donations to the cause.

Whether you are the one who has the cancer or someone who loves a person with cancer, feeling that you have some control over your life is critical to getting through the experience.  That is true for children of all ages.  Be honest. Don't lie.  Give them as much information as they can handle, and let them feel some sense of involvement in what is happening.