My mother-in-law has been fighting colon cancer for the past two and a half years. It has been a tough slog with many ups and downs and close calls, but she has persevered. She got treatment through the Block center in Chicago, which included diet and exercise regiments along with traditional chemo. Unfortunately, about two weeks ago it was discovered that things had progressed to the point that there was no point in pursuing further treatment and she started Hospice care.
This has been hard on my wife and she is trying to get up to visit her mom as much as possible. She just left this morning and before she left our five year old daughter, who is one of the most generous kids I ever met, had my wife pack some of her Halloween candy to share with her grandparents. I don’t think the wheels in her head ever stop turning because as we were getting in the car she said, “Grami is eating sugar now?”, which had been one of her dietary restrictions, now pointless. My wife told her that, yes, she was. To which my daughter replied, “Maybe that means she is getting better!” Followed up shortly later by “Will she still need glasses when she gets better?” For most of my daughter’s intellectually-aware life, Grami has been sick and the topic of her getting better has not come up before.
Ugh. That was not when we wanted to be having that conversation though - her on the way to school and my wife leaving town for four days. We know we should tell her but she is SO anxious and thinks and worries about stuff so freaking much. She is going with my wife next weekend to see Grami and we would rather she just enjoy their time together. On the other hand, it seems unfair to leave her in the dark.
Part of the problem is that we don’t really have any timeline here. Given her current state she could last for months. On the other hand, she could throw a clot and be dead this afternoon. I don’t want my daughter to end up spending months worrying about her Grami.
I guess one approach would be just to tell her that Grami’s sickness isn’t the kind of thing that goes away and that she isn’t going to get better. That she stopped doing treatment because they weren’t working and she still is going to be sick. If she presses on our explanation, which she may very well do, then I guess we would have to be honest. Hopefully we will have some warning when her passing is imminent, but if not we will have at least managed our daughter’s expectations.
I am sure many other dopers have dealt with this. Anyone have any advice?
Children who worry, worry MORE in the absence of clear information, not less.
Do not hide the truth from your child. The simple fact is: *Grammi is going to die, she’s going to die soon, and we’re going to make the most of the time we have together by visiting often and having fun together. She is in a special place where they will help her to be comfortable so we can enjoy each others company. *.
Choose whatever words you prefer but tell the truth. Do you want to spring it on her suddenly, with no preparation, and maybe no chance to say goodbye? That seems 1000% more awful to me, than laying out the facts simply and matter of factly.
ETA: small children are VERY literal. Don’t use euphemisms like “went to sleep” or “went away.” They will take them literally in many cases and become frightened of sleeping, or traveling, etc.
Sorry to hear your family is dealing with this sad situation. I do think that it’s important to be honest with her about grami still being sick so that it will not be quite so shocking when grami takes a turn for the worse. I would also be careful to reassure her that it’s nobody’s fault that grami is sick and nobody has any control over it. I know from my own time as a young child that sometimes children get ‘magical thinking’ ideas about having some sort of control or responsibility for these kinds of situations.
We sat my daughter down when my mother in law was in last stages… She understood far better than I ever anticipated. I believe she was around 6 or 7… Children are far stronger than we give them credit for…
I’ll definitely echo what Hello Again said - be literal. Try not to shield her with metaphors. I don’t have any experience with this from a parent’s POV, but I was your daughter’s age when my older sister died of cancer and I remember how my mother handled the situation. The day she died, Mom didn’t know how to tell me, so when I asked when my sister would be coming home again, she just said ‘she won’t be coming home again.’ I didn’t understand then and I was probably 7 or 8 before the reality of it sunk in. That sounds odd, but I think I just kind of forgot it. I was used to her frequent hospital stays and I assumed this would be a really long one. At that age, the day-to-day absence of someone as an indicator of death was beyond me. While I don’t have any ill feelings about how it was handled, I do think it would have been easier for me emotionally if I’d been told the truth, however harsh it was.
Your daughter sounds like a bright girl and, since she’s made the connection on her own that ill people can get better, I bet she’s also realized (at least on some level) that they can also get worse, so the idea of death might not be a complete shock to her.
A Hello Again said, honesty always. Couched in age appropriate terms of course, not too much detail on medical specifics unless your daughter is a savant.
Also, consistency. I think most kids perceive time and information differently than adults. I think that what they know & understand may change depending on other things they see & hear and sometimes they rearrange the pieces in an erroneous way. Especially if their hopes feed into it. You may need to repeat and clarify the conversation multiple times. Don’t feel like you did it wrong the first time (or the fifth). She may just need to revisit her perceptions and conclusions over & over.
My advice is to tell your daughter, in words she can understand, that grandma had the “no-sugar” restriction when it could help her, but now she is so ill that there is nothing more anyone can do to make her better. Since restricting sugar is no longer helping her, it’s OK for her to eat it again. Yes, grandma is dying and it is sad and scary. The best thing we can do for grandma right now is make her as comfortable and happy as possible.
And let her see grandma if grandma is up to it. These will be her final memories of grandma, and it will be less scary if she can see and talk to grandma. This is also important if grandma will take some happiness and comfort in seeing your daughter.
Death is scary and sad, but it’s part of life and your daughter will encounter it sooner or later. Better to for her to do so with her parents nearby to comfort her and support her and discuss her fears than the family treating it as something to be hidden, which gives the message it’s somehow shameful. Hiding it, and misguided “shielding”, can also lead to a child imagining things MUCH worse than what is actually happening.
Of course, you know your child best, but be careful you’re speaking to her and guiding her based on her needs and understanding not by your own fears.
I can’t offer advice from a parent’s perspective, but I was that kid once myself. My dad’s father didn’t really want anything to do with his kids or his grandkids after his wife died the year before I was born, so my mother’s parents were very important to me. We saw them a lot, and we were very close.
When I was five and a half or so, my grandmother’s cancer came back. They’d thought she’d beaten it a decade earlier, but it was back. As far as I recall, my parents didn’t do much to try to sugar coat things, and I got very depressed when it sank in that I was going to lose my only grandmother. Terminal illnesses are hard for kids that age to cope with, because while you’re just barely old enough to understand that people die and that means you’ll never see them again, you also are still big believers in magical thinking too. Santa really truly is going to come to your house, and if you just wish hard enough/pray enough (if brought up to) then grandma will be okay, because you need her to be. I was devestated when she died even though we really loved her and wanted her to be okay.
I ended up in therapy for the only time in my life to help me cope with my grandmother’s illness when it became clear to everyone that she was dying, and her subsequent death. I guess my point, Baracus, is that you might not know how to help her, and it’s okay if you don’t. There are people out there who know exactly what to do to help, and there’s nothing wrong with admitting that you need their help with your daughter if it turns out that you do.
Thanks for the responses everyone. We definitely won’t be sugar coating anything. Her great-grandfather died a couple of years ago and we were straight with her then. At that time my wife was a little bothered by how unperturbed she was, but I suspect this time will be different given how much closer she is to her grandmother and her more mature intellect.
I talked to my wife during her layover and we agreed that we definitely need to say something once she gets back and before they head up there next weekend. I will keep what all was said here in mind when we do.
Absolutely. Nobody ever stopped a worrier from worrying by withholding information. All that does is teach them that whatever you tell them, the reality is much, much worse. So you tell them some fairly piddling bad thing, and in their head it blows up to OMG DISASTER proportions, because if the person who hides information so they won’t worry is telling them something bad, then something really really really bad is going on.
And as others have said, the longer you let her think Grami will get better, the more castles in the air she’s going to build about how things will be when Grami’s better. All the things Grami can eat, all the places Grami can go with her, all the things they can do together. It’s going to tear the heart out of you every time she talks about. It’s going to tear the heart out of Grami when she talks about it in front of her. And it’s going to be that much harder when she realizes that Grami’s getting worse, not better. That’s not fair or kind to any of you. Hard as it is, you need to at the very least tell her Grami isn’t going to get better, and you need to do it today.
I have no specific advice, but I will say that this is one of the things that Hospice organizations tend to do well. Larger ones will often have staff and facilities devoted to helping kids who are affected by death, and any of them will be able to offer guidance in that regard.
Tell her something honest and applicable. When my youngest sister died when I was a kid, all I knew was she was there one day, she seemed kind of drool-y, she went to the doctor, she never came home again, my parents disappeared for a couple of months, I saw her one time on her birthday when she was near death and had had lots of chemo, and next thing I knew she was dead. We were told NOTHING, and it still bothers me.
The other thing that you don’t want to do is think that she will react in a certain way when she is told grandma is going to die. She may surprise you. She probably already knows what is going on and just needs you to confirm it.
This is based on several times telling my kids the truth when I didn’t want to (I always tell my kids the truth) because I thought they would react badly. Usually, they are just happy to know what is going on.
I’ve always known my mother sick, although not deadly so, and found myself the homemaker and general caretaker with two young brothers more than once (during the worst times, they were aged between 5 and 9); my nephew’s grandfather was diagnosed with ALS shortly after the kid’s birth and died of it when the boy was 4.
Be honest, your daughter will probably have less of a hard time with the notion that Grami is not going to get better and is, in fact, going to die “sort of soon but we don’t really know when” than you do. Your daughter is old enough to understand that the world doesn’t always work in predictable, well-defined ways, much less work like we’d like it to.
My nephew once asked me “will you get angry if I ask if Grandpa will die?” “no, I won’t. We all die, you know, and he will die some day” “I mean soon… I asked Mom and she got mad Is Grandpa going to die soon?” “pretty soon yes, but we don’t really know when” “oh, ok. I’ll be sad… want to play with my construction set?” He’d already encountered death: a beloved pet, a friend’s grandmother - it was the grown-ups who were still in denial, but he simply wasn’t old enough to need that denial. I’ve known that same kid to get mad at his Dad when said Dad promises “I’ll be with you forever and ever, all the days of your life” “no you won’t, don’t lie to my sister! People DIE!” “I won’t” “yes you will, don’t lie to me! I don’t want you to die but don’t lie!”
Another vote for telling her that her Grami isn’t going to get better.
My grandfather was sick my whole life. I seriously spent every single birthday wish, wish-upon-a-star, dandelion blowing wish, wishing that he would get better. I prayed hard every night that he would get better. If I fell asleep before I had a chance to finish my prayers, I freaked out and prayed extra hard the next day. No one really told me what was wrong with him (cancer) and that he wouldn’t get better. They just said he was sick and to pray for him. So I did. When he finally died, I knew it was my fault for not praying hard enough, or maybe I wished for my grandfather to get better AND a pony one year for my birthday and that was selfish.
Kids do weird things in their heads if they don’t get the truth. If only someone had told me he wasn’t going to get better and that I should just pray for his pain to ease or something, I would have had much less stressful childhood.
Followed up shortly later by “Will she still need glasses when she gets better?” For most of my daughter’s intellectually-aware life, Grami has been sick and the topic of her getting better has not come up before.