It’s not your fault
Recently my eldest little man (5 years old) asked if it was his fault that I have cancer. What a huge burden for little shoulders to bare. I worry for how long he has felt like this and how deeply. Will this be a painful memory that he struggles with later on in life? If I could remove his pain, and shield him from cancer, I would do it in a heartbeat.
We need to talk
Sitting your kids down to tell them that you have cancer is probably one of the hardest things a parent can do. I am not sure we nailed it, well clearly not, as months after my little man has been quietly blaming himself. As a family we are open and honest and try to explain things that are going on. For example our eldest was very involved with the decision for names for our youngest. Which coincidently worked out well for me as he chose my favourite name!! We feel strongly that we are a team and our kids have a voice which should be heard.
How do we do this?
So here are some tips for you on how we approached this very difficult topic. It was never going to be easy so we did some research and followed advice from our medical experts and the Cancer Council online resources:
Talk as a family
We decided to talk about this at the dinner table and at bed time as a family. Even though our then 18 month would not have a clue about the conversation I wanted him to be about and hear what we were saying.
2. We did not use the words cancer, mastectomy or chemotherapy. This was translated into lumps, operation and medicine. We felt this was more palatable for a 5 year old to process.
3. We covered off the logistics such as I am going to have an operation to repair my breasts and will need to rest. So you will be with Grandma for a few weeks, but you can talk to us anytime.
4. We gave an idea how things were going to change and our expectations. Some of the medicine will make Mummy very tired so everyone will need to be super helpful around the house.
5. It was important to highlight the fact that Mummy was going to lose her hair. For our eldest, who used my hair as a comforter since he was a tiny baby, this was a very difficult one until we worked out a way to keep my hair for him. He has gone to bed every night with it ever since.
6. Throughout our conversations we made it clear that Mummy was going to be OK and that we both love our boys very much. We let them see that this was hard for us too and many tears were shed.
7. You won’t be able to talk about everything all at once. It took several conversations before it started to sink in and we able to cover everything off. We were relieved to start hearing some questions, so we knew what he was feeling and how he was processing the news.
8. Check in, check in, check in. This was the only reason I was able to find out that my eldest blamed himself.
Here is a link that we found very useful.
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