BREAST CANCER/PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS: PRESCHOOL CHILDREN
Very young children will not understand the facts and details about what is happening; they will, however, know that something is very wrong. In reaction they may be more clingy and irritable, or conversely, they may be too well behaved and anxious to please. What they need most is reassurance that someone (ideally someone whom they already know and trust) will always be there to care for them and reassurance that they are not responsible or to blame for what has happened. The normal magical thinking of young children may lead them to believe that their anger or words have caused your illness; tell them directly that this is not so.
You must also distinguish between your cancer treatment and the more ordinary illnesses ttiat may happen to them. We have heard stories of young ch iidren panicked about taking an antibiotic because “momrviy’s medicine” made her hair fall out! Many mothers worry* that their young children will be especially upset if they lose their hair because it is harder to explain the process to them. Our experience has been that preschool children accept their mother’s baldness as one more interesting and new thing about the world. One woman said that her three-year-old daughter wanted her to come to nursery school as her show-and-tell exhibit!
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