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Katherine Puckett, Ph.D.
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VIDEO: Katherine Puckett, Ph.D. - Cancer Diagnosis, How Should A Mother Tell Her Kids?

Listen as Katherine Puckett, Ph.D. shares good ways for a mother to tell her children she is diagnosed with cancer.

Katherine Puckett, Ph.D.:
I think for a woman with cancer, diagnosed with cancer, talking to her children often is a harder challenge even than talking to her spouse or partner. I think it depends on the ages of the children. That’s certainly one important factor, but probably even first I would say it depends on the level of comfort that woman has herself with her diagnosis first.

I think it’s harder, and this is what I hear from our patients, it’s harder to tell one’s kids if one hasn’t come to terms with it oneself. I’ve heard women say, “You know, I am not going to tell my kids until I really know what’s going to happen to me,” and I understand that thinking. You know, you want to feel in control. You want to have your mind around it enough first to get yourself together, being calm enough and controlled enough when you tell your kids and that makes sense.

However, we need to remember that our children, even very young children, pick up when something is going on with us. So even if we haven’t told them directly, they’re going to know something is different because it’s pretty darn hard to disguise the fact that a woman has some pretty difficult news.

So, gauging by the age of the children, one could say something like, if it was a pretty young child, it could be, “Mommy’s having a hard day today,” or, “Mommy is going to the doctor to find out what’s going on so we can find out the best way to take good care of me.”

There is a really nice set of documents published by the American Cancer Society helping parents talk with their children about the parent’s cancer. I highly recommend them. They are downloadable for free online and one of the nice things they do is break down kids by age group. So it’s going to be different talking to a 3-year-old than a 6-year-old or an 18-year-old. You know, the older the children, the more information they’re going to be intellectually able to understand. That doesn’t mean it will be less emotional for them, but they’ll have ways to understand more about it.

I would say in general, answer your children’s questions as directly and simply as possible, but don’t try to give them more than what they’re asking for in that moment. Sometimes parents go overboard and sharing much more information than their children were ready to hear. So, if a parent is tuned in to her children, she will be able to gauge when they’re ready for another piece of information or more details about something.

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