How to Tell Your Kid You Have Cancer: 7 Things You Need to Know
The hardest part of cancer? That’s a loaded question, but telling my kid about it ranks up there at the top of that list. Lauren had just turned ten when my husband and I found a lump in my breast. A few days later, an oncologist predicted I had three months to live. “We have to tell her,” Gary said. I wanted another day, just one more before we had to rock her world. But eventually, I did it, and if you have to do it too, here’s my advice: 1. Get Your Head Together Before I talked to Lauren, I prayed. I cried. I stared at the wall. I froze pans of lasagna. I prayed some more. I meditated, took deep breaths, binged on chocolate, went for walks, and made water color paintings. I practiced saying words out loud so I could get through what I needed to say. Lauren would take her cues from me and this conversation would remain the cornerstone of those cues. I wanted to get it right. “Of course she wants to know about you,” a social worker told me, “but she also needs to know what’s going to happen to her.” That sounded right, so I channeled my inner 10-year-old and planned what to say. 2. Tell Her Cancer’s Not Contagious Kids are smart, especially mine. But I’m glad the social worker reminded me that kids probably don't know they can’t “catch” cancer like a chest cold. I told Lauren we could still hug and touch and share milkshakes and she didn’t have to worry that she’d get cancer too. Later, when I spoke to her classroom, I told them the same thing. I couldn’t be their volunteer art teacher anymore, but at least I wasn’t giving them a deadly disease. 3. Say “Someone Will Take Care of You” Lauren needed to know that with or without me, she was going to be all right. The truth is, I didn’t know how we were going to pull it off, but I did know that no matter what, Lauren would have clean clothes, hot meals, a roof over her head, and God at her side. I told her she’d still go to school everyday and get to see her friends. As a family, we’d figure everything out, and she would be okay. 4. Tell the Truth. Mostly. The first oncologist I saw said I’d be dead in three months. The next guy, though, was more optimistic – he gave me a 60% chance. When Lauren looked into my face and asked me if I was going to die, I chose optimism. “It’s true that some people die from breast cancer,” I said, willing my voice to be steady. “But the doctor thinks he can cure me. And I’m going to do exactly what he tells me to do.” 5. It’s Okay to Laugh I told Lauren I that the medicine I had to take was really strong and had crazy side effects. “I’m going to lose all my hair,” I said. “Even “down there.” We giggled. Because she thought it was funny, and watching her laugh made me laugh too. 6. It’s Okay to Cry In fact, it’s a must. In my family, we cried
together and we cried separately. All of us cried for the same reasons and all of us cried for different reasons. And that’s okay. 7. Like George Michael Says, You Gotta Have Faith In the United States, one in eight children loses a parent to death. It seems incomprehensible that my kid could be one of them, but at some point, I made peace with that reality. For me, my faith in God really helps. I know that God is with us, the whole time, every step of the way and that whether or not I physically survive cancer has nothing to do with winning or losing a battle. Telling a child that a parent has cancer is brutal, but thinking it through in advance really helped me, and I think it helped my daughter too. And in my case, choosing optimism worked. Our conversation took place five years ago. Now, we talk about where we want to go on vacation, whose turn it is to take out the trash, and everything in between.
This post was published first on BreastCancerNews.com
