How To Help Children Through A Parent S Serious Illness

Offering supportive, practical advice from a leading child-life specialist, this book includes information such as what to tell a child about the illness, how to recognize early-warning signs in a child's drawings, sleep patterns, schoolwork and eating habits, and when and where to get professional help. Illustrations & Calvin & Hobbes cartoons.

Offering supportive, practical advice from a leading child-life specialist, this book includes information such as what to tell a child about the illness, how to recognize early-warning signs in a child's drawings, sleep patterns, schoolwork and eating habits, and when and where to get professional help. Illustrations & Calvin & Hobbes cartoons.

How to Help Children Through a Parent's Serious Illness has become the standard work on an important subject. A classic for over fifteen years, it continues to be a go-to book for supportive, practical advice, based on the lifetime experience and clinical practice of one of America 's leading child life practitioners. Fully revised and updated, this new edition also explores the major issues and developments from the last decade that affect children today, including the dangers and opportunities of the Internet, a deeper understanding of how hereditary diseases affect children, the impact of the nation's explosive growth in single-parent families, and new insights into how family trauma and a parent's mental illness may affect children.

Parents with young children & teenagers aren't supposed to get sick; & they aren't supposed to die. But often they do. Leading child life specialist McCue explains these children's special needs, & tells parents, teachers, & other caregivers how to help them face the mental & emotional stresses & come out healthy, no matter what the parent's medical outcome. Tackles every aspect of this sensitive complex subject, using professional guidelines, time-tested advice, & examples from real-life families. Parents will find reassurance, insights, & practical advice to help their children through one of life's most serious challenges. Illustrated.

Parents get sick. Their lives change radically, and quickly. This book offers immediate, practical and experienced advice for adult family members and others responsible for the wellbeing of children when one parent has a serious illness. The authors are both clinical social workers with years of training and time spent with children and families in crisis. They establish a clear and authoritative voice, while keeping a tone of encouragement throughout. With its matter-of-fact language, the book is organized to make it easy for parents to turn to the sections they most need, when they need them. Collins and Nathan keep their readers focused on the child in every situation, while always supporting reasonable boundaries in positive self-care for the adults who serve them. The authors remind us that the task of parenting is hard enough, even when Mom and Dad are healthy, energetic and emotionally strong. Add a diagnosis of cancer, heart disease, or a debilitating accident to the mix, and parenting can quickly become overwhelming. They acknowledge that anyone faced with a serious health crisis will be challenged daily to decide on treatment options, to reorient priorities, and to deal with the many stages of grief that humans suffer when confronted with survival issues. They help us remember that one member’s illness will affect the entire family system, and explain how. The book is unique: • It deals with any kind of serious illness, not just cancer. • It explains how children of different age ranges commonly react to a parent’s illness, or other family crisis. • It suggests specific language in talking to children of different ages. • A full chapter is devoted to advantages and disadvantages of using information technology, rarely covered in other books on this topic. • Based on extensive qualitative research. • Includes excerpts from interviews with parents and children coping with illness in the family. Both authors rely on their training, but also on early life experience in which they encountered traumatic family events. As a teenager, Courtney Nathan lost her mother to breast cancer. Leigh Collins suffered a terrible accident as a young child, and was confined in hospital for many weeks. Their book reflects a dedication to other families who face such life-altering circumstances. The book has received wide endorsement from medical doctors and social service personnel who know the urgent need for this information for their patients and

For families with a seriously ill parent--advice on helping your children cope from two leading Harvard psychiatrists Based on a Massachusetts General Hospital program, Raising an Emotionally Healthy Child When a Parent is Sick covers how you can address children's concerns when a parent is seriously ill, how to determine how children with different temperaments are really feeling and how to draw them out, ways to ensure the child's financial and emotional security and reassure the child that he or she will be taken care of.

This book tells true and poignant stories from both sides of the physician-patient/parent relationship and provides a unique glimpse into how parents and physicians think, feel, and interact. The stories are grouped under four sections: Hope, Compassion, Communication, and Trust. Each section includes stories contributed by parents from all across the United States and by pediatricians practicing at many of the best children’s hospitals throughout the country. The parents tell of interactions with physicians that had a significant impact on them and their child and offer context and insight that promote empathy and reflection. The physicians tell of interactions with patients and families that served as learning moments in their career and promote the humanization of medicine and show there is more to a physician beyond their scientific knowledge and white coat. The stories are edited by Barry P. Markovitz - a pediatrician specializing in critical care medicine who has been in practice for more than 20 years and by Ann F. Schrooten - the parent of a child born with a chronic complex condition who has more than 15 years of experience interacting with pediatric subspecialists and other healthcare professionals who cared for her son. The editors have written commentaries to the stories to provide an independent perspective on the events and messages conveyed and to encourage reflection, inquiry, and discussion. In addition to being a valuable resource for pediatricians, pediatric subspecialists, nurses and other healthcare professionals, the book will also appeal to families of children living with complex medical conditions because it shares physician encounters and behaviors many have experienced in the care of their own children. By giving a voice to both parents and physicians, the goal is to create a bridge to better understanding that can improve communication, minimize conflicts, and foster trust and compassion among physicians, patients, and families.