A diagnosis of serious or terminal illness, of a parent or sibling, causes emotional upheaval, change in routine and circumstance, and impacts upon everyone in the family.
Supporting your children through this journey can be exceptionally difficult for parents. You are dealing with your own emotional situation and trying to care for your children too. In this section we provide some information we hope will be helpful at this time.
If you would like some support to help your child manage a challenging life event, Kenzie's Gift may be able to help. Kenzie's Gift provides one-to-one therapy for children and young adults.
"She grew up in a world where we discussed death openly and freely. Emma and I never had any secrets from her and would share things on an age appropriate basis." Grant's daughter Rebecca was aged two and a half when her Mum Emma was diagnosed with a serious illness.
When a parent is diagnosed with life threatening or terminal illness, telling the children about it may seem extremely difficult and just too hard to do. This is understandable.
The diagnosis may have been expected, or could have come out of the blue, but it has brought with it a wide spectrum of emotions - shock, fear, anger, sadness and more - and feelings of guilt, anxiety and maybe even relief that finally some facts are known.
There is also the realisation that life has changed for everyone in the family. The future is uncertain. You had always believed both you and your partner would be there for your children, to see them grow up, but now you're not sure.
It is a lot to cope with.
This section provides some guidelines for telling your children about your partner's diagnosis. When treatments have been unsuccessful, or there is a diagnosis of terminal illness, we provide some further guidelines here (Link to Supporting children when a parent is terminally ill)
The need to protect our children is instinctive and so the first thought could be, 'I cannot tell them' but even young children can sense when something is wrong. Keeping the information away from children can add even more to an already overwhelming emotional and physical burden. They can feel excluded, confused, anxious and insecure. We have provided some guidelines for telling your children here (link to Telling children about a parent's illness: some helpful guidelines)
Older children will have a grasp of illness and the permanence of death but may struggle with a parent's illness at a time when they are trying to find their own identities.
If you would like some support to help your child manage a challenging life event, Kenzie's Gift may be able to help. Kenzie's Gift provides one-to-one therapy for children and young adults...
She grew up in a world where we discussed death openly and freely. Emma and I never had any secrets from her and would share things on an age appropriate basis.
- Grant
We've discussed some ways of supporting your children when a parent is diagnosed with serious illness here, but if treatments for that illness are unsuccessful, children will need to be part of another conversation with you. As hard as it was to tell your children about the initial diagnosis, letting them know that your partner will not recover can be even more overwhelming.
It is hope that keeps us going, and when hope is gone, it is a very hard and painful reality to accept. However if you have been communicating openly with your children up until now, and they have been a part of the journey every step of the way, they will probably have an understanding that things are not going well. Older children will be more cognisant of this but children of all ages have a need for security and will be feeling anxious about the future, and what the decline of your partner's health will mean.
A child's security is based on the trust they have for those who care for them and the impending loss of a primary caregiver is exceptionally stressful. Once again, ensuring honest and timely provision of information and continual reassurance that they will be cared for is vitally important at this time.
If you would like some support to help your child manage a challenging life event, Kenzie's Gift may be able to help. Kenzie's Gift provides one-to-one therapy for children and young adults.
I was completely lost and didn't know what to say to Ashton. How can you help a child so young understand what is happening? How do you tell him that Daddy only has a few years to live and cannot do the things other Dads do?
- Gemma