There communication of diagnosis Of a serious and disabling pathology is configured as a stressful, and potentially traumatic event, for the individual who is affected, but not only.
This event, in fact, impacts significantly on the functioning of the person’s entire family, mining the structure, modifying their roles, set -up and relational dynamics. This has possible Psychological and psychopathological consequences for all members. When the patient is also parent, things get complicated further.
Some parents, if they get sick, choose not to speak to the children of their illness. The reasons behind this decision can be manifold and include:
- the attempt to protect them from painful emotions
- the difficulty of the idea of being able to receive difficult questions about illness and death
- The difficulty in contacting the sense of guilt that derives from the idea of talking to them about certain topics or not to be quite adequate parents as they are sick
- the fear of showing themselves vulnerable and frightening them
- the belief that children could not understand
- the attempt to maintain a ‘quiet’ climate so as not to disturb them
However, the choice not to communicate always implies taking on a huge personal effort in order to keep this ‘secret’.
Adequate communication to children
On the contrary, adequate communication in this sense allows important advantages. Among these is the reduction of the levels of anxiety experienced and the improvement of communication in the family.
In addition, it allows to reduce the sense of isolation, solitude and exclusion experienced by their children when they perceive that something important (and probably serious) occurred, but that parents do not want to participate in this. In these cases it is often observed that children do not feel in the right to ask questions. They can feel distrust towards parents (or to the world of adults in general) or take attitudes and behaviors of ‘hyper -resisability’, up to a real reversal of the roles for which they come to take care of their parent.
A adequate communication It also allows you to protect children from the sense of guilt that derives from the frequent tendency to take responsibility for the negative events that happen in the family.
The risks of failure to communicate
Furthermore, not talking to them does not mean preventing that they perceive that something important has changed. In this regard, generally children and teenagers tend to build themselves Personal theories On what may have happened, in order to make sense of the perceived changes.
These theories may include explanations is even more frightening fantasies of reality itself. For this reason, adequate communication allows you to reduce the experienced fear, which can reach very intense levels.
Do not communicate also, it may suggest the children that they are not important and to contact them deep feelings of solitude that derive from the feeling of having anyone to talk about their emotions with. All this can have important repercussions on their behavioron the relationships they have with others and on school performance.
The methods of communication
Communicating their diagnosis to children is a certainly complex, delicate process, and can make a lot of fear feel. Generally, moreover, the decision to speak with them opens to further and difficult questions. For example: what and how much to say? How to say it? When?
Obviously there is no way that can be fine for everyone. However, there are general indications that can be useful to face this difficult process. First of all, it is absolutely legitimate and important that parents have the opportunity to take time to be able to think about what is happening to them and to prepare for the communication of this to their children.
However, it may be useful not to wait too long. Is in order to avoid the possibility that children independently acquire, or accidentally receive from other sources, of information on the matter. Both because it is normal for children to perceive adults from adults and the emotions that inevitably derive from having faced certain diagnostic procedures and having received the diagnosis of a serious pathology.
What to say to children
What to say? It is important to share an explanation that allows children to attribute meaning to what is happening and the inevitable changes, including routines, that they will experience.
Generally children and young people want to receive information relating to disease and care: for example, the name of the disease, the alleged causes, those who take care of it and how to care, the effects of the therapies and its alleged evolution.
It may also be useful to explicit them that they must not take care of the parents But that parents, as adults, have resources to face this situation and it is not the task of dealing with them.
The details of the information to be shared is good that they are ‘tarate’ on the basis of how much children want to know and ask for about it. Thus, it becomes important to pay attention to verbal and non -verbal communication signals, in order to adapt the communication to their reactions.
It may be useful to keep in mind that it is not necessary to share everything: let alone everything and immediately. But it is important that what is shared is real, while instilling hope.
It can also be useful investigate what they know about this diseasein order to correct any incorrect information. In addition, it is completely normal that children can ask questions to which parents cannot answer. Also in this case being honest, and therefore responding, for example, simply “I don’t know” is completely legitimate.
Eventually it can be evaluated how to find the requested information together or encourage them to speak with doctors or nurses. In addition, it may be important to confront the other adults with whom their children interact, in order to share with them the information that your children have, so that children and teenagers can receive the same explanations from all the reference adults.
How to say it
The best experts in the ways to speak to their children are the parents themselves. The choice of the words to use and any support aids (stories, stories, videos, information booklets …) derives from age, degree of maturity and their personal characteristics.
When you have more children is generally useful Talk to them togetherto then possibly evaluate to deepen individually at a later time.
However, if you choose to talk to them separately, it is useful not to make too much time spend to avoid sharing information between them, without having received it from parents first.
It is important to choose a quiet place and moment In which children and young people may not have distractions, maintain attention and feel free to ask questions and express their emotions.
In fact, good communication cannot ignore the possibility that they have the space to be able to freely express what they feel and think, and therefore their emotions and thoughts in relation to what has been communicated.
Also for this reason, adequate communication is to be considered a process that cannot be exhausted in a single moment: in this sense it is important over time to show openness and interest in the expression of new doubts, fears, concerns or painful emotions.
Also, it is important that children and young people understand that the emotions they feel (and that they see from the parents), however heavy or painful, are completely normal, make sense of the light of what is happening, are not dangerous and will pass. And that for all these reasons It is completely normal to experience them and express them: that can be accepted, rather than being frightened or feeling wrong because they try.
Obviously this process is not easy at all. The load of a serious illness is already heavy in itself and leads to experimenting with painful and intense emotions that, in some situations, can hinder the possibility of taking care also of the pain and needs of their children.
In this sense, the possibility of asking for help and support to their partner, family members, friends, other significant figures or a professional, in order to be supported in this difficult process, becomes crucial.
Bibliography
Hailey, Ce, Yoop, Jm, Deal, AM, Mayer, Dk, Hanson, LC, Grunfeld, G., Rosentein, DL, & Park, E., M. (2018). Communication with Children About a Parent’s Advanced Cancer and Measures of Parental Anxiety and Depression: A cross-sectional mixed-methods study. Support Care Cancer, 26, 287-295.
Moore, C., Shea, S., Russell, K., Convery, MS, & Rauch, PK (2018). Communicating with Children About Parental Cancer: The Devil in the Details. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 36.
Rauch, PK, Muriel, AC, & Pagem, NH (2002). Parents with Cancer: Who’s Looking After The Children?. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 21, 4399-4402.
