Encouraging children to help

When a family is dealing with a cancer diagnosis, children may need to take on extra responsibilities. If your children feel they are being useful, it can increase their self-esteem because it shows that you value and need them.

Young children can help with simple tasks. With older children and teenagers, it’s reasonable to want them to help more around the house, but talk to them about it first. It’s important to negotiate tasks with teenagers – avoid overloading them and try to share tasks fairly among all family members. Jobs that need to be done are not necessarily obvious to them, so discuss priorities and how tasks can be divided up.

When asking teenagers to help, keep in mind that it is age-appropriate for them to spend time with their friends. Missing the opportunity to socialise with their peers can make them feel resentful at a difficult time and affect their self-esteem.

Listen to our podcasts on How to Help Someone with Cancer and Family Dynamics and Cancer

Helping around the house

The internet is a good source of information about appropriate jobs around the house for children of all ages.

Try searching for “age- appropriate chores”. Some possibilities include:

Ages 2–4	put toys into toybox put books back on shelf put clothes into dirty washing basket
Ages 4–8	set table match socks help make beds help dust help put away groceries
Ages 8–12	make bed feed pets vacuum load and empty dishwasher rake leaves

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.