Cancer is not easy for anyone to understand and yet children and teens have an additional difficulty due to the way they think. People do not learn abstract thinking until 12-15 years old or later. What does this really mean? It means that without abstract thinking younger people think everything is black or white, good or bad. We see a bright, articulate young person and believe they think like an adult when really they see situations as two sided instead of multi-faceted.

Whether you are 8, 18 or 28 when your parent is diagnosed with cancer, your world suddenly shifts. The questions of what to do, what to say and how to act affects not only the child but the parent too. At a time when instability is the norm, how do you maintain stability in the parent/child relationship?