Family life

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

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 €œHow do you tell your children you have cancer? €_x009d_, 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.