Explaining Cancer To A Child

One of life’s difficulties in explaining cancer to a child. They will find this subject too difficult for them to understand why they may be losing a loved one. Describing how it develops, the curiosity and anxiety regarding treatment and the dawning awareness of factors in life that may be beyond our control are the main concerns we need to address. Younger children will not understand, but older children will want an explanation.

When dealing with a child we should watch for the clues in the way he/she repeats the questions. Are they most concerned about the pain or if someone else in the family might get cancer? Or possibly their questions will be about death itself for the older children. Begin by restating their question with the added context and see if the conversation moves forward from there.

The basic biological explanation of cancer is that it occurs when cells in the body go haywire and suddenly begin to multiply in an uncontrolled way. Cancer occurs, unlike normal cells that grow in specific places and at certain speeds, as the cancer cells ignore all of the rules and divide so quickly that they take over the environment and begin to damage the normal cells.

This disruption is the reason that cancers can become so deadly to us. Many systems make up our bodies and each is dependent on certain conditions to function properly. If one of the systems becomes overwhelmed, the entire body begins to suffer. Tumors, or clusters of cancer cells, can cut off airways in the lungs, block passageways of organs, generate blood vessels that hijack oxygen and nutrients from normal tissues, damage nerves and can upset the balance that is critical of biological processes. In order to restore that order, medicines and treatments will be administered to kill those rogue cells and spare the normal cells. Surgery might be another way to remove those cancerous cells from the body.

Children have begun to grasp the concepts that verge on the complex by 10 years of age. It helps to use analogies drawn from their own realm of experience beginning at about that age. Children should only be told what they are old enough to comprehend if they are younger. A good rule of thumb has always been to address only the questions you have been asked by a child without delving too deeply into a subject as sex or illness. You know your child better than any and will know exactly how much and what kind of information he or she can comprehend.

Some of the advice comes from Eve Glazier, M.D., MBA who is an internist and assistant professor of medicine at UCLA Health and Elizabeth Ko, M.D., an internist and primary care physician at UCLA Health.

Dr Fredda Branyon