Resources | FOR THE FAMILY
Are your children having a difficult time dealing with your diagnosis, or asking questions that you are having a hard time answering? These websites and books may be helpful.
Helpful Websites
KidsCope
Provides educational materials to help children cope with changes in the family when a parent has cancer.
Kid Support
Helps children cope when a parent or other family member has cancer, by providing access to high-quality adult led support programming.
Kids Konnected
Offers a hotline, Internet site and support groups for children to talk to other children who have a loved one with cancer.
Phone: 1-800-899-2866 or www.kidskonnected.org
Cancer Family Cares Children & Youth Services
The Children's Services of Cancer Family Care offer support and guidance to children and their families through difficult times
http://www.cancerfamilycare.org/content/view/14/47/
These books are recommended to help children understand Cancer
Angel Kisses by Ginny Kelley (2000) Angel Kisses. ISBN: 0-9640434-2-5.
A very sweet book that can comfort frightened children about the upcoming loss of a mother. The author uses lambs as the fictional characters and brings the cancer experience of getting sick, having treatment (losing her hair), not getting better and later dying to an elementary level for very young children. Written specifically for young children about loosing their mother.
Breast Cancer: Questions & Answers for Young Women by Carole Vogel; Twenty-First Century Books: 2001. ISBN: 0-7613-1855-0
Written for adolescent girls, this book answers questions on breast health and breast cancer. It also offers practical guidance and comfort to teenagers whose mothers are undergoing breast cancer treatment.
Moms Don't Get Sick by Pat Brack; Melius Publishing, Inc.: 1990. ISBN: 093760374
Written by a mother and son, this book describes their experience and feelings while the mother was treated for breast cancer.
Once Upon A Hopeful Night by Risa Yaffe; Oncology Nursing Press: 1998. ISBN: 1890504106
This book does a wonderful job of helping a parent with cancer explain what is happening to their child. It provides a guide to open communication with their child about the sensitive subject.
One’s Own Self by Jalazo, Dori. One’s Own Self, 2003. ISBN: 0-9715195-0-1
This book is a story about finding joy and fulfillment in the brief friendships and experiences that touch our lives while discovering that trusting oneself enables it possible. The book shares the concept of loving one’s self to enable people to enter a life and accept that they will eventually move on and become who they are because of those relationships. The story could be read to a child who may be losing a loved one to breast cancer who needs reinforcement that it is okay to let them go.
Our Family Has Cancer, Too! by Christine Clifford; Pfeifer-Hamilton: 1997. ISBN: 1570251444
Clifford shares her personal childhood experiences about her mother's breast cancer as well as her own experiences as a mother with breast cancer.
Paper Chain by C. Blake, E. Blanchard and K. Parkinson; Health Press: 1998. ISBN: 0929173287
The illustrated storybook for children provides a general understanding of breast cancer for younger children. The book uncovers the children's feelings of fear and separation as their mother faces surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.
The Year My Mother Was Bald by Speltz, Ann. (2003). The Year My Mother Was Bald. Washington: DC Magination Press. ISBN: 1-55798-888-9
A month-by-month account of young girl’s life who shares her feelings and questions about her mother’s battle over breast cancer.
Tickles Tabitha's Cancer-Tankerous Mommy by Amelia Frahm, Illustrated by Elizabeth Schultz; Nutcracker Publishing Company: 2001. ISBN: 0-9705752-0-3
This book covers many serious issues like cancer treatment and its affect on the body and even how the delicate infrastructure of day-to-day family issues between husband, wife and children are changed by cancer.
When Eric's Mom Fought Cancer by Judith Vigna; Albert Whitman & Co.: 1993. ISBN: 0807588830
This is a storybook for younger children about a mother who undergoes treatment for breast cancer.
When Mommy is Sick by Ferne Sherkin-Langer. (1995). Morton Grove: IL: Albert Whitman & Company. ISBN: 0-8075-8894-6.
The book is a great resource to read to small children whose mother is ill and hospitalized. The text can open discussion about the many feelings a child may have while her mother is away due to illness. The story portrays a little girl's experience while her mother is ill and hospitalized.