“I don’t want to alarm my children, but I don’t know want to lie to them either. How much should I tell them?”
“I think my child understands, but I don’t know. He never says anything to me about my cancer.”
“What should I answer when my daughter asks, ‘Are you going to die?’
These questions are common in families parenting through cancer. Parents frequently struggle with communicating with their children around the illness, the treatment and the range of emotions that the entire family experiences. I recently became acquainted with an organization that assists families with these concerns.
The Children’s Treehouse Foundation is the nation’s only organization providing hospital-based, cancer-focused, psychosocial intervention training and programming dedicated to improving the emotional health of children whose parents have cancer. Founded in January of 2001 in Denver, the organization has been granted 501(c) (3) status as a public charity by the Internal Revenue Service. The organization was created by Peter van Dernoot, whose wife was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer when their children were in their early teen years.
According to a brochure provided by the Foundation, the organization “envisions a world where preventing the inevitable psychosocial impact on children whose parents have cancer is taken as seriously as finding a cure for cancer itself.” The Children’s Treehouse Foundation supports these children and their families with multiple resources.
Mr. Van Dernoot has published two excellent resource books on this topic:
“Helping your Children Cope with Your Cancer” begins with four chapters written by professionals who provide guidance on the needs of children in families where a parent has been diagnosed with cancer. The remainder of the book is a collective of narratives from parents allowing honest insight into the impact of their diagnosis on their family. The book also allows readers to hear directly from the children themselves through their comments, essays and drawings.
“Talking with My Treehouse Friends About Cancer” is an activity book for children participating in the CLIMB program. This books has pages that prompt the child to express his feelings through word or pictures.
The Children’s Treehouse Foundation provides cancer centers and hospitals with professional training to enable them to launch support programs for the children whose parents have cancer so they are better able to cope in that unsettling, frightening, and stressful environment. They receive training and program manuals, a power point presentation, a DVD, and children’s activity material developed by the Foundation’sCLIMB® (Children’s Lives Include Moments of Bravery) program, funded in part by the Avon Foundation.
The family burden of dealing with cancer, and the inevitable stress, can also be significantly reduced through group support available through the The Children’s Treehouse Foundation.
The above information was posted with permission from Mr. Peter van Dernoot, founder of The Children’s Treehouse Foundation. To find more information on the organization or to obtain their books, please visit the website, www.childrenstreehousefdn.org.