“Telling” the Child with Cancer: Parental Choices to Share Information with Ill Children

Parents of seriously ill children often struggle with the decision of whether and what to tell their child about the illness, treatment, and prognosis. Medical staffs, psychologists, and parents have advocated either “protective” or “open” approaches to this communication problem. This paper empirically investigated parents' choices regarding what to tell their child with cancer. Moreover, it analyzed several demographic and contextual correlates of the telling decision, stressing the importance of the child's age, sibling structure, parents' religious or existential orientation, and parental access to information and support for a particular approach. The family's initial shock at the diagnosis, changes in the child's medical condition, and the occurrence of uncontrollable events in the medical and social environment also influence what the child is told.