Family life

Glossary

When cancer is advanced and life is even more uncertain, many families find new ways to focus on the things they value most. Here are some ideas for maximising your time with your family and preparing them for the future:

Accept offers of help. It not only frees up your time and energy for the family, it also allows friends to feel that they are contributing.
Make a memory box, choosing keepsakes together. These will be personal choices, but could include: treasured photos; a DVD of a family event; special birthday cards; a favourite cap, tie, scarf or another item of clothing; a list of shared memories; tickets from special outings; a family recipe; a pressed flower from your garden; a bottle of perfume or aftershave; and a lock of hair.
Plan a special outing with your family. You might have always wanted to take your kids to the beach, the ballet or the football grand final. You might want to show your kids where you grew up, or maybe there is somewhere special that your children would like to take you.
Listen carefully to what your children want to say. Allow your children to express any regrets that they have.

Issues with going to school

It can be difficult to know whether to send your children to school each day if you think someone in the family may die soon. You may feel like you need to let them spend as much time as possible with their loved one. Maintaining routine in a child’s life can help them to feel more stable and safe. It might help them to go to school and see that normal life can continue, even though things are changing at home. However, there may also be days when keeping your children home feels like the right thing to do.

You may want to talk to your children’s teachers about what is going on at home. It’s helpful for the school to know about any major concerns in a student’s life so they can understand and respond appropriately to any changes in behaviour or academic performance.

If you have older children, it’s important to ask them what they want you to do. Teenage children might choose to tell their teachers themselves. They may not want their teachers to know at all because they don’t want the attention or to be thought of as different from the other students. Reassure your teenager that their teacher can help and won’t tell anyone else without their permission.

Listen to podcasts on Explaining Cancer to Kids and Family Dynamics and Cancer

Click on the icon below to download a PDF booklet on talking to kids about cancer

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Kobo

To download an EPUB file to your Kobo from a Windows computer:

download and save the EPUB directly onto your desktop.
connect your Kobo to your computer using the USB cable and tap “Connect” on your eReader.
select “Open folder to view files” to view the contents of your Kobo.
navigate to where you have stored your EPUB file in “Finder”, in documents or downloads, and drag and drop it into the Kobo window. You can now disconnect your Kobo to read the eBook.

To download an EPUB to your Kobo from a Mac:

download and save the EPUB directly onto your desktop.
connect your Kobo to your computer using the USB cable and tap “Connect” on your eReader.
open your “Finder” application.
select “Kobo eReader” from the listed devices to view the contents of your Kobo.
navigate to where you have stored your EPUB file in “Finder”, probably in documents or downloads, and drag and drop it into the Kobo window. You can now disconnect your Kobo to read the eBook.

Turn on your Kobo and your EPUB will be located in “eBooks”, while a PDF will be located in “Documents”.
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connect the Reader™ to your computer.
open the Reader™ Library software and click “Library” in the left-hand pane and select the eBook to view it.

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Amazon Kindle 2nd Generation devices

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open the Kindle™ drive and several folders will appear inside. The “Documents” folder is where you will need to copy or drag the PDF to.
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Android and PC

You can also download and open eBooks on Android devices and PCs with appropriate apps or software installed. Suitable eReader apps for Android include Google Play Books, FBReader and Moon+ Reader. Suitable software for PCs include Calibre and Adobe Digital Editions.

This information was last reviewed in December 2018

View who reviewed this content

We thank the reviewers of this book: Professor Kate White, Chair of Nursing, The University of Sydney, NSW; Sarah Ellis, Psychologist, Behavioural Sciences Unit, Kids with Cancer Foundation, Sydney Children’s Hospital, NSW; Kate Fernandez, 13 11 20 Consultant, Cancer Council SA; Chandra Franken, Program Manager – NSW & ACT, Starlight Children’s Foundation, NSW; John Friedsam, General Manager of Divisions, CanTeen, NSW; Keely Gordon-King, Cancer Counselling Psychologist, Cancer Council Queensland; Stephanie Konings, Research Officer, CanTeen, NSW; Sally and Rosie Morgan, Consumers; Dr Pandora Patterson, General Manager, Research and Youth Cancer Services, Canteen, and Adjunct Associate Professor, Cancer Nursing Research Unit, The University of Sydney, NSW and Visiting Professor, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Coventry University, UK; Suzanne Rumi, Consumer; Michael Sieders, Primary School Program Manager, Camp Quality.

We would also like to thank the health professionals, consumers, organisations and editorial teams who have worked on previous editions of this title, and we are grateful to the parents and young people whose real-life stories have added to the richness and relevance of this book.

We thank and acknowledge Dr Paula K. Rauch, MD, Founding Director, Marjorie E. Korff PACT (Parenting At a Challenging Time) Program and Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, whose research and writing on helping parents talk to their children about cancer was used as source material for this book and has been adapted in several sections: pages 8–11, Different views of cancer; page 24, Answering key questions: Are you going to die?; pages 26–27, Involving the school or preschool; pages 30–31, Prepare for hospital and treatment centre visits; and page 37, Encouraging family time. We also thank the American Cancer Society for permission to use and adapt material on pages 8–11 from its book Cancer in Our Family: Helping children cope with a parent’s illness (2013); Macmillan Cancer Support for permission to use its book Talking to Children and Teenagers When an Adult Has Cancer (2013) as a source of information; Jessica Watt, Oncology Social Worker, Children’s Hospital Westmead, for her contribution on page 18, When another child has cancer; Diane McGeachy, Hobart Counselling Centre, for contributing material for page 38, Spending one-on-one time; and Dr Ranjana Srivastava, and The Guardian for permission to adapt “How do you tell your children you have cancer?”, on pages 21 and 47 – full story is available at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/nov/29/how-do-you-tell-your-children-you-have-cancer.

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Support services

Coping with cancer?
Speak to a health professional or to someone who has been there, or find a support group or forum

Caring for someone with cancer
Practical advice and support for carers

Cancer information

Advanced cancer
Information for different stages of advanced cancer

What is grief?
A natural response to loss can involve a range of feelings and experiences

Publications

The information on this website is also available in the following publications:

Talking to Kids About Cancer

837 kB
64 pages 905 kB

Living with Advanced Cancer

490 kB
72 pages

Understanding Grief

187 kB

View all publications

Call 13 11 20 to order free printed copies.

Instructions for downloading and reading EPUB files

Apple devices

The iBooks application must be installed on your Apple device before you can read the EPUB.
Different ways to download an EPUB file to your Apple device:

email EPUB files to yourself and transfer the attachment to iBooks.
copy EPUB files into DropBox (or a similar service) and use the DropBox app to send them to iBooks.
open EPUB files directly from Mobile Safari and open them in iBooks, where they are saved automatically by downloading the EPUB from the website.

Need more help? Visit: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4059

Kobo

To download an EPUB file to your Kobo from a Windows computer:

download and save the EPUB directly onto your desktop.
connect your Kobo to your computer using the USB cable and tap “Connect” on your eReader.
select “Open folder to view files” to view the contents of your Kobo.
navigate to where you have stored your EPUB file in “Finder”, in documents or downloads, and drag and drop it into the Kobo window. You can now disconnect your Kobo to read the eBook.

To download an EPUB to your Kobo from a Mac:

download and save the EPUB directly onto your desktop.
connect your Kobo to your computer using the USB cable and tap “Connect” on your eReader.
open your “Finder” application.
select “Kobo eReader” from the listed devices to view the contents of your Kobo.
navigate to where you have stored your EPUB file in “Finder”, probably in documents or downloads, and drag and drop it into the Kobo window. You can now disconnect your Kobo to read the eBook.

Sony Reader

To download an EPUB file on your Sony Reader™:

ensure you have already installed the Reader™ Library for PC/Mac software
select the eBook you want from our website and click the link to download it.
connect the Reader™ to your computer.
open the Reader™ Library software and click “Library” in the left-hand pane and select the eBook to view it.

Need more help? Visit: https://au.readerstore.sony.com/apps_and_devices/

Amazon Kindle 2nd Generation devices

download the PDF directly onto your computer.
connect the USB cable to your computer’s USB port, and the micro USB end of the cable to your Kindle™. Note: the Kindle™ won’t be available as a reading device while it is connected to your computer until it has been disconnected.
open the Kindle™ drive and several folders will appear inside. The “Documents” folder is where you will need to copy or drag the PDF to.
safely eject your Kindle™ from your computer and unplug the USB cable. Your content will appear on the Home Screen.

Issues with going to school

Instructions for downloading and reading EPUB files

Apple devices

Kobo

Sony Reader

Amazon Kindle 2nd Generation devices

Android and PC

This information was last reviewed in December 2018

Support services

Cancer information

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