How to talk to children about cancer

Catherine, Princess of Wales, hosted a children’s picnic at a newly created garden at Chelsea Flower Show in last May. Photo / Getty Images

These conversations are among the more important and delicate discussions that parents can have, experts said.

Catherine, Princess of Wales, has been diagnosed with cancer and has started preventive chemotherapy, she announced in a video message last week.

“It has been an incredibly tough couple of months for our entire family,” Catherine, also known at Kate, said in the video. She said that it has taken time to recover from surgery to start treatment for her cancer. “But, most importantly, it has taken us time to explain everything to George, Charlotte and Louis in a way that is appropriate for them, and to reassure them that I am going to be OK,” she added.

Conversations such as those that Kate has had with her children are among some of the more important and delicate discussions that parents can have, according to Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a professor of psychology at Temple University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Children, especially younger children, consider their parents a steady rock, she said. If something disrupts that stability — “even if it’s a manageable cancer — to a child’s ears, wow, that is scary.”

Hirsh-Pasek recommended explaining that “there are going to be times when Mum doesn’t feel as good as other times, but she is going to be there for you, and she is going to be around.”

But, she clarified, “I’m not saying you lie.” Children are highly observant, Hirsh-Pasek said. “If you hide something, kids know you are hiding something.”

These conversations naturally bring up anxiety and pain for parents, said Hadley Maya, a clinical social worker at the Center for Young Onset Colorectal and Gastrointestinal Cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

“We try to help parents understand that having these conversations with your child in an honest way can help the child cope and help them feel not left alone with their feelings, their worries and their imagination,” she said. Frequently, a child is imagining something worse than what is happening.

The word cancer “doesn’t often scare them as it does with us as adults,” said Maya, who also helps to coordinate Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Talking with Children about Cancer programme. “The not knowing scares them more.”

Parents may also worry about a child seeing them cry. But it’s not bad to show vulnerability, Hirsh-Pasek and Maya said. It’s an opportunity for parents to show that it’s OK to not feel well, to express emotions and to ask for help.

Conversations about serious illness might be markedly different from they were a few years ago, Hirsh-Pasek said, because many children lived through and remember the coronavirus pandemic. That does not mean the discussions are any easier, but children may be more aware of what it means to be very sick.

That also means that explaining cancer is more important than ever. Maya recommends focusing on three C’s: catch, cause and cancer. Explain that cancer is not contagious and they can still hug a parent and share food. Tell children that they did not cause the cancer or any of the circumstances around it (which is a common idea, especially among young children, she said). And be clear that the illness is called cancer — not a “boo-boo” or a sickness.

Let your child take the lead in some discussions, Maya said. Give them the opportunity to ask questions, and acknowledge “that while you may not have all the answers, you will try and figure it out and come back to them.”

In her statement, Kate shared some of what she has told her children: “As I have said to them, I am well and getting stronger every day by focusing on the things that will help me heal; in my mind, body and spirits.”

That kind of language reassures children, Hirsh-Pasek said, and it shows them how we are able to move beyond things that are difficult.

“I wouldn’t use these kinds of opportunities to discuss death and dying,” Hirsh-Pasek said. “I would use these opportunities to discuss life and living.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Talya Minsberg

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