Children and Cancer
Thursday, June 16th, 2011Children need to inform them of the cancer with clear words and short phrases”
Those affected by cancer should always inform their children, gradually, taking into account their maturity, because when they set aside the children suffer. The musicological Sonia Fuentes, Psycho-Oncology Unit of the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO)-Badalona, ??Hospital Germans, in this interview provides some guidance on why and how parents should act with respect to cancer sufferers their children. Demystifying the disease and present it as a natural process is one of them.
How do we tell a child that your mother or father has cancer?
The first thing to consider is the child’s age and maturity level of understanding, is not the same a 4 or 5 years than a 10 or a teenager.Before reaching that women affected, for example, you find a lump.At this point, you can begin to explain to a child of 5 or 6 years that her mother must see a doctor.This is information gradually, with clear and understandable words, phrases and short simple and, above all, always dosing information.Do not forget that communication is not an act but a process.
Why is it important to consider such a process?
Telling or not telling the truth is not to give much information, but to inform as they know things.The disease is not an act but a process, to be slowly to inform the child to go digested.
Do I need to be active when the children are informed about a cancer process?
Yes, I think so.Children, for their way of being, often ask a lot but be aware that there may be others who do not, they are quieter, like teenagers, who do not dare to ask.It is also very important to let the little ones, especially if the mother is absent during the surgery and treatment, because if not, distress.We have to explain things, because with the big imagination and overflowing with all kinds may involve issues that do not correspond with reality.
Who is best placed to inform the child of the process: the person concerned or the rest of the family healthy?
I think the best person to inform himself is affected.
Why?
Speaking of disease is a form of education as it is part of the life cycle
A sick person provides their own information to your child.However, if the person gives information, it may think that what happens to your mother ‘too big’.What we recommend to our patients is that when the couple has affected to inform them together, although the patient who must communicate the news.We think it is good to involve the partner, and if the mother is unmarried, it is recommended that one person with you is a benchmark for the child, as this will allow you to compare the information you get with someone else.We must naturalize the disease as possible because it is part of life.We need to talk to their children, nieces and nephews … diseases.Comment is a way of educating in this view of disease as a natural process.
So, should we always inform them of cancer and other diseases?
Always.They are always taken into account and should be informed of everything: disease, adoptions, separation … Some families do not and, by letting them apart, the children suffer.They realize all the changes at home, especially when the mother is affected.
Recently, the ICO has issued a paper on the increased prevalence of depression in people with cancer. Have you studied this disorder in the environment affected?What about children?Do you depressed?
Rather than get depressed, we could say that an altered normalcy, especially when the mother is the primary caregiver, which leads the school and pick them homework help and can not do to continue the process of chemotherapy. The kids miss. Therefore it is desirable to find someone who has a strong bond with the child so that during those days, can replace the mother. But it should be clear that there are recipes for everyone. Not the same woman newly diagnosed with cancer a terminal phase.
How should you deal with children with end-stage?
As I said before, you should report to the smallest since the beginning, so when the disease is complicated, they will see that his mother is well and live deterioration.This does not mean it is not painful, but it is worse to live in silence.Of course, everything depends on the communication style of the family.There are families who communicate effectively and others are struggling.
And that’s the worst in these cases.
Lack of communication is a problem that does not help much.At meetings of family-oriented psycho-oncology with some difficulty and we propose to learn new ways of communicating, promoting coexistence in difficult situations, much more adaptive.
I guess to inform children in a gradual manner that avoids the trauma would tell at once.
Yes Awareness of a bad news hit is obviously more traumatic and therefore it is advisable to dispense information.This will generate a circuit of questions and answers.It is important that sometimes the parent’s response is “I do not know,” “do not know, the doctor explained it to us.”Saying you do not know something is also an answer.
It is possible that many children have heard of cancer.What can be done to remove the fear of this disease?
Children do not have the fears that have the elderly.But we have to do is demystify the disease. Sometimes we are most afraid of the word than the disease itself.The wolf is not so fierce!And there are also difficult to deal with diseases that do not have the connotations of cancer.In principle, children have no prejudices or fears.Perhaps the most likely to be more contaminated by the higher the adolescents.The thing to explain is that cancer is a chronic disease that affects many people but most, after cancer treatments, are their lives.Surely in his class there are children whose mother or father which have or have had cancer.The best we can do to take away the fear of these children is to ‘naturalize’ the disease.Not only cancer, but the entire life cycle.
TELL A STORY WITH
Explain to a child who has a disease like cancer can be painful and difficult for many parents.Around age three, children and capture anything going on around him and is considered the ideal age to begin to report a case of cancer at home.The psicooncóloga Sonia Fuentes, aware of the difficulty of taking this necessary step, wrote the children’s story ‘… What’s wrong, Mom? “which won the ‘Jaume Blanchart Suñol i’ in 2006, improving information to patients by the Academy of Medical Sciences and Health of Catalonia and the Balearic.
The story is suitable for children from 3 to 4 years to 10 years.The illustrations in Meritxell Giralt, head of a nursery and an expert in motor skills, complete the narrative of the process of successful breast cancer from diagnosis to treatment and introduce elements to demystify the disease and enjoy the day to day in spite of it.
This is how Pol gets to play the pirates with his mother, who has his head covered with a handkerchief, and to declare that her mom is the best in the world.Next to him, goes through the pages of the story a butterfly that changes of expression.It is sometimes sad, sometimes angry, and other content.This feature allows psicooncólogos work with the child’s emotions and make the express.
