How much is too much (or not enough) to tell children about a parent’s cancer diagnosis?

Cancer education for children is something I am extremely passionate about. I have very strong views on this matter, having lived through this myself. I get asked all the time about what a parent should say or how much to say to their children when it comes time for the “Big C” discussion. On the other hand, since about the age of 12, I have also heard from hundreds of kids, like myself, who are on the receiving side of the information, who feel they haven’t been given enough.

This is something that I have been thinking about a lot the last few months and have tailored my ideas moving forward specifically for children of parents with NET Cancer. (Keep your eyes peeled this fall!)

I have been approached by CancerEd: a team of faculty and students from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI. CancerEd is working to create free content to be used teach K-12 students about cancer in a scientifically accurate, yet sensitive manner with materials that are age-appropriate. They already have a few of these lesson plans that can be viewed on their website CancerEd.org.

In efforts to keep developing quality content and to tailor these curriculums, they have reached out with a survey to better understand the conversation and tools being used (or needed) by parents (or caregivers) who have cancer (or had) in order to facilitate these highly important and difficult discussions.

Please take the time to fill out this anonymous survey and please pass this survey on to anyone who can participate in order to gather this extremely important information!

CancerEd Parent Survey

A huge thank you to anyone who takes the time to fill this survey!

If you have any questions or concerns reguarding this survey, or if you would like a PDF version to fill out or pass on to others, please reach out to me at tricia@netcancerawareness.org or leave me comments here!

Thanks again!

Tricia Wahmann-Knatz