Telling a 7 yr old about cancer
health advisory
Hospital
Diseases
2007-11-12 20:35:45
My 7 year old asked me what cancer is. How do I explain it to her?
Answer:This is a sickness that some people get. If she doesn't ask anymore, don't tell her any more.
If she asks about a particular person with Cancer.....tell her the person IS sick with this.
Its an incurable disease that some people get and some are able to recover from it for short periods of time. It attacks the body's organs and cells and causes them to break down.
It is a serious illness that is caused by "bad" cells in your body multiplying too quickly.
If she's asking she must have heard someone talking about it. Just tell you what you know. Don't scare her. I would want to know why she's asking. Where did she hear about it. I have 4 granddaughters and the oldest is 7 and she's never asked about this.
I was around that age when my gramps developed prostate cancer and died 3 months later.
He explain it as: your grandpa is very, very sick. You can't get it from touching him, and because the doctors are going to give him medicine, he may even lose his hair! If we help give him courage, he will have more strength to fight his illness!
I was there everyday for him. :-/
I would tell her something about cancer being things that start growing inside your body that can hurt it (tumor), or things go wrong in your bones that make your blood bad (leukemia). Maybe get a couple of books from the library, they have children's books available (can't think of any specific right this second) that use appropriate language, and go into just enough detail to be informative and not scary.