When a Parent Has Cancer: A Guide to Caring for Your Children

by Wendy Schlessel Harpham

At some point in our lives, many of us will face the crisis of an unexpected illness. For parents, the fear, anxiety, and confusion resulting from a cancer diagnosis can be particularly devastating. How can you care responsibly for a child when you are in special need of care? How much should you tell your child? How can life go on -- for everyone in the family -- when you are faced with months, even years, of treatment? When a Parent Has Cancer. A Guide to Caring for Your Children is a book for families written from the heart of experience. A mother, physician, and cancer survivor, Dr. Wendy Harpham offers dear, direct, and sympathetic advice for parents challenged with the task of raising normal, healthy children while they struggle with a potentially life-threatening disease. Dr. Harpham lays the groundwork of her book with specific plans for helping children through the upheaval of your diagnosis and treatment, remission and recovery, and, if necessary, confronting the possibility of death. With full understanding of the difficulty of achieving balance in the midst of change, she emphasizes the importance of being honest with your children about the gravity of the illness, whileassuring them that their basic needs will always be met. She encourages families to create a "new normal," in which cancer becomes a manageable part of daily life, and suggests concrete, creative ways for all familymembers to work together to achieve this equilibrium. Dr. Harpham also addresses the special needs of single parents, as well as teenagers and the well spouse, who are learning to cope with a loved one's illness. Included with When a Parent Has Cancer is Becky and the Worry Cup, an illustrated children's book that tells the story of a seven-year-old girl's experiences with her mother's cancer. Becky and the Worry Cup, which can be read by the child alone or together with a parent, poignantly touches on the fears, anger, guilt, and uncertainty that children feel when their mother or father is sick. Dr. Harpham has given us two important and invaluable books. When a Parent Has A Guide to Caring for Your Children and Becky and the Worry Cup are written with the honesty and clear-sightedness that can come only from lived experience. She offers comfort, encouragement, and reasonable hope at the exact moment you might fear none is to be found. Most important, these books provide a plan of action for you and your children to live meaningfully and well when life is at its most uncertain.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published September 21, 2004

Reviews

[Avril Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the information was good, but it wasn't until page 101 that she addressed people with teenagers, divorced parents and other "special" needs (which I fit). If you have younger kids, under age 10, this could be very helpful to you.

[Alexandra Chauran · Rating 5 out of 5]

This big book is very well organized, with important points in bold and bullet point summaries in the back of each chapter for the parent frantically trying to stay a step ahead of their own children's trauma as events unfold. One of my favourite advice quotes is: "Recognizing what you most desire as 'none of the above,' and then letting go of your desire to pursue the unavailable solution, frees you to deal with the problem in a realistic way, and move forward."

This book's companion is Becky and the Worry Cup: A Children's Book About a Parent's Cancer. I'll let y'all know in a separate review how much it does or does not mess my kids up. It can't be as bad for them as mom having cancer, right?

I did notice that she has one bit of advice that is contradicted by the pamphlets and booklets I've read so far. She advises parents to empower kids with ways to help the parent with cancer feel better. For example, drawing her pictures. While she's clear that one shouldn't send the message that kids are responsible for recovery, other things I've read so far stress more that parents should be explicit that it's not the kids' job to help mom feel better and that the kids' only job is to be kids. I figure this is one of those situations where I'm choosing between two turds and the desired solution is "none of the above."