Parenting with incurable cancer means dealing with uncertainty at the same time as giving your kids security - here are 3 ways to help them feel secure:

1. keep them informed

Keep communicating with your kids, update them when new information comes in - it helps them ‘park’ their worries

2. reassure them

Tell them they will always be looked after, that you love them and that they have done nothing to cause your illness

3. keep family rules

Try to maintain normal boundaries and rules (they might not like them but they feel secure and safe with them in place!)

watch this workshop

In this workshop Sam Petrie, Maggie’s Family therapist in Edinburgh, helps us find ways to deal with uncertainty when parenting.

Or read this guide:

Here are our favourite tools to help parents and their kids

Make a den together for when your kid needs time and space away from big feelings.

Children can write or draw their worries and pop them in a box. Ask if you can read them.

Four sets of coping cards that focus on feelings, fears, school, friends and visiting hospitals.

explaining secondary cancer

Little kids can find it difficult to visualise what cancer is, and how it can spread to different parts of the body. We find using the ‘Flowerbed’ analogy very helpful as they can grasp the idea and when seeing flowerbeds in the park.

In the garden there are plants called weeds. Weeds are unwanted plants because they grow too quickly and take over the beautiful flower bed. They crowd out the healthy plants and flowers taking up all the space.

Cancer cells are like weeds in the body. They are unwanted because they grow too quickly, crowding out the healthy cells so the body doesn’t work properly. Doctors need to get rid of or cancer cells, just like gardeners need to get rid of the weeds.

All plants, including weeds, have roots that keep them firmly in the ground. Sometimes the roots of the weeds grow underground, through the soil, and pop up as a new weed in another place in the flower bed. The gardener can’t see this happening because the new growth is hidden underground. Sometimes this can happen with cancer. The cancer grows undetected in another place hidden from the doctors.

Exploring pre-bereavement

1. why?

Pre-bereavement is a very tricky time, where everyone can swing from hope to acceptance and back again. Being honest with children about what is happening gives them a chance to prepare, but as a parent it takes lots of courage to even think, let alone talk about, when you might die

2. when?

Thinking about how to support your children in their pre-bereavement can start when you are feeling well and not near the end of life. Preparing when you are mentally OK, can feel empowering if supported along the way

3. How?

  • Watch our workshop around pre-bereavement with Jody Spargo, family therapist at St Joseph’s Hospice in London

Or you can read the workshop guide here: