When Talking To Kids About Hard Things, Choose Truth Over Comfort
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I'm Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside. Hard conversations are just that, hard. And when you have to have a hard conversation with a child, it's particularly difficult. The conversation I was planning to have today with a parent on the show was supposed to be about how to talk to your kid about money. But on this particular Thursday, the mom I spoke to was having a really tough day and needed to talk about something else.

So I'm just going to pivot and I might cry a little bit just to get it out of my system. And then we're going to talk about the money. Okay. Totally good. Okay. So real quick. So my husband has incurable cancer and he was diagnosed three years ago. And the thing with this cancer is that it comes back. He reacts really well to chemo, but it always, the cancer always comes back. So I think it's back. We'll know today or tomorrow.

So every time it comes back, you know, it just kind of, overall, I feel like we're doing really well emotionally. But obviously, when it comes back, I'm just kind of revisiting, you know, the trauma of the diagnosis. And this time, it's really compounded because I feel like we really need to tell our son about it. And I just don't know how, you know. So I'm just like crying all day thinking about it. And I was like, holy shit, like she'll think that it's like the worst thing.

You know, session on earth. But I really need to, like, I'm going to pull it together. I want to talk about money, but I just really need to get it out of my system. No, I mean, really, my gut ear, first of all, first of all, thank you for sharing all that with me. Second of all, that is a lot. That is...

I mean, that's a lot for him. That's obviously a lot for you. I mean, that's a lot considering, you know, you're trying to figure out the dynamic with your child too. And like to have it seemingly go away and recur, it's such an emotional roller coaster where you never know where the next drop is coming. So those are scary roller coasters, but it's not a roller coaster. It's your real life. So that's much scarier. There's no off ramp. So yeah,

This is what's here. I mean, I think this is what we should talk about. And I promise if you have some extra questions about the topic we were going to discuss, you can send me an email and I'll send you some voice notes so you feel like you have something to use. And so we decided to change course and have this important and hard conversation. We'll be right back. All right, so let's talk about his cancer then.

So tell me what you want to tell me about it in terms of, you know, how it's leading to like what's going on today and what you're struggling with yourself, with him, with your child. Okay. So, um, you know, I hate when people apologize for their tears. Like when I watch movies and I'm like, sorry, sorry, I'm doing the same, but I'm just kind of feel bad because like you, you don't have much time and I just really want to like pull myself together. Yeah.

Well, let me make this useful for you, okay? What would feel useful to you? And the next, like, if in 20 minutes, something like that at the end, you're like, oh, I just heard this and this. That's useful to me because I can also do more of the talking and you can do more of the, like, being and sitting. So what would be useful to you? I love that. Okay, so I don't know how to tell my son that his dad has cancer.

My son is almost four and my husband has incurable cancer. He was diagnosed in March 2020, which was a pretty unfortunate timing. He has cancer of blood. So he basically has cancer of plasma cells, which is a cancer of immune system, which made him in the highest group risk for COVID. So that was extremely scary.

And our son was nine months at a time. So I definitely feel like we do carry some PTSD from that. And I don't think we entirely worked through that. And now that he understands so much more, I'm very scared. And I really don't know how to verbalize it. So I just wanted to tell him something along the lines, you know, you're...

Dad has cancer. There are different kinds of cancers. His bones are sick. He's doing well. He needs to get medication every week because my husband is on chemo every Wednesday and he comes back home really weak and depleted and my son sees it. But then what happened is I went on Facebook group for multiple myeloma patients and I asked them, please tell me, how did you talk to your kids about it?

And maybe 10, 15 people said, please do not mention it at all. My son, my daughter told me after 10, 15 years, you know, that they've been terrorized, traumatized. They were living in fear of losing us every day. And that really made me pause because it never really occurred to me that I... So...

I just had this thought today, like, wow, like I really, my husband and I really need to sit down with my son, with our son and tell him about it. But it kind of feels like I'm ending his childhood by telling him. A childhood of just like feeling like everything is safe and secure and you can't even consider that something bad could happen. Like you're like just ending that, that possibility, that effervescence, that kind of naivete. Is that what you mean?

Yeah. Like the, you know, like childhood of fun and innocence and yeah. Yeah. No wonder it feels like a hard day. I mean, I mean, you have this going on with your husband, you're worried you're going to be a childhood killer. It's like, it's a lot going on.

You know, it's a tough role. Okay, well, here's how I see it. Okay, so the number one thing I would say is there's no one right way to describe or handle situations that feel so wrong.

I promise I have more specific things to say about that, but I think that's really important. Like, what's the right way to describe to my almost four-year-old that his father has multiple myeloma? Like, I have more things to say, but the first thing I want to say to someone that's like, I don't know, like, that's like really hard to do. Like, really, really hard, sad things don't have linear, clean ways of describing themselves, right? Or handling things. So,

There's something I think important about saying that to relieve ourselves of like, okay, well, if I don't do it this way, that's wrong. If I do it this way, I'm traumatizing my kid. If I do it this way, I'm not traumatizing my kid. Like that can't, it can't be that clean for something so nuanced and so messy. The next, you know, I think you know this about me, but I'll say it. Like the thing I'm always guided by are principles.

That's why, like, whenever I hear a new situation, everyone has new situations, the reason I think I can think through it with people is not at all because I've gone through every situation someone could have gone through and I know the outcome. It's just because I come back to, like, the things that guide me. And one thing that guides me is the belief that information doesn't scare kids as much as feeling alone and confused in the absence of information scares kids.

That's a general belief. I also have a belief, because I'm like a normal, reasonable human, that we shouldn't like overflow children with scary information just because, you know, we want to be truth tellers. Like I do not sit my kids down and be like, look at all these images of these earthquakes that have happened across the world because you should know this. No. And yet the thing that like makes me think about one path or another has a lot to do with like

Well, if information doesn't scare kids as much as feeling alone and confused in the absence of information scares kids, what is my kid noticing? What is my kid picking up on? And like, I can just say this for me, but it really might not be true for every other family, okay? Is that for me, if my husband had multiple myeloma, like, I can't imagine my kid not picking up.

Not that he had multiple myeloma, but that things feel different. That people are crying. That dad looks sick. That dad looks weak. That my parents are talking to each other in a different way. Or maybe he'd overhear me saying multiple myeloma when I was in my closet thinking I was talking to someone, you know, out of his earshot. But really his ears were pressed against my door because he's like, mom's looked upset. Why is she being weird and going into the closet? And now I want to listen, right? And I get scared by the idea.

that my kid is picking up on like different pieces of things. And I know not everyone listening will be able to see this, but you can. But I see it as like, oh, she's had multiple myeloma. She's crying. He looks weak. He's usually home on Wednesday nights and he's not home on Wednesday nights. The two of them are going to the doctor a lot. It's like, there's all these scattered pieces and kids have to put pieces together if we don't put pieces together for them.

But they often can't. So like the whole, they can't have a story. They're just like confused and overwhelmed. Just like I think if I, in a much less serious way, but if I was in a workplace and I was hearing layoffs and budget cuts and this happened and where's that person who used to work here? And no one said to me, hey, this is what's happening in the workplace. Like I actually think I'd feel way worse picking up on scattered pieces that I couldn't quilt together.

than I would if I had someone quilt together the pieces, even if the quilt wasn't a nice quilt, even if the quilt was kind of awful. I still think I would do better having everything quilted together than having patches all over the place. So just so far, am I making any sense? Are you like, Becky, stop with the quilting metaphors. You've totally lost me. No, it does totally make sense. And I mean, it definitely resonates.

But what do I do with what the people said? So look, I understand what they said too. That's why I never am oriented by it's always right to tell your kid. I think about that principle. So then a part of me wonders, okay, well, maybe he doesn't. I don't know. Maybe life is going on as usual. Maybe that could happen. Maybe it's like, look, Becky, right now I'm talking to you. I'm tearful. But my kid's at daycare from 8 a.m. until...

You know, 7 p.m. And like they really haven't, you know, and that I really think is like where the parents have the best evidence of like what's going on in their house. You know, I guess another thing why I are on the side of sharing is.

I think about everything pretty long term. I think, you know, like in terms of the patterns we set with our kids today really impact the types of kids they become when they're adults. Not from single things, but patterns. And something I think about a lot is kids are brought into this world as like extremely perceptive people. They really, they notice everything. They notice more than we do because their evolution really depends on it.

And if I want my kids to continue noticing things in the world, noticing things that aren't right, noticing things they want to stand up for, noticing things that they say, hey, what is that? That's not typical when they're 18, when they're in college, when they're adults. I can't, when they're young, kind of like invalidate their perceptions just because they're inconvenient and uncomfortable. I actually think in large scale, we actually understand

teach generation after generation of kid to stop noticing things around them. Because when they notice it, we either don't explain it to them, we don't name it, or we say things like, you're too young to know about that. Which really kids learn like, oh, I guess I was wrong to notice things around me. And that really disturbs me. So I hear everyone saying this. I guess...

You know, I also think it's important to understand the word trauma. Most people really don't understand it, right? Trauma doesn't refer to an event in and of itself. It refers to the way an event gets processed in a kid's body. It really refers to an event that's stored in aloneness.

So, to me, sharing this news with your son, that's first of all, that's just one moment. But the way then we follow up with our kid and check in, not all the time, we're not going to flood them with this, but the way we validate their emotions, the way we honor the uncertainty, and we can get into more specifics, that's really important.

Because I wouldn't think so much, do I tell my kid or not tell my kid? I don't think that's the binary that's going to mess up a kid. It's more, okay, if I feel it's right to tell my kid, how am I going to handle that? Am I going to have that first conversation? How am I going to handle their reactions? How am I going to handle their questions? So when someone says, don't tell them, telling my kid, you know, robbed them of their childhood, I have a little skepticism that it was the telling versus I just think there's such a longer arc. Like we don't take away our kid's childhood by like single moments. So-

I think if you're going to tell your son, which again, like, I'm not going to lie. I bet I probably would, but I err on that side. And I also just have a hard time imagining my kid wouldn't notice such like a major thing. Like you said, you're like, I'm crying a lot or, you know, this is emotional, right? I think my kid would notice that. The way I would say it is,

is first of all, just always using real words. We often avoid using real words with kids, which makes things so much scarier. So words like multiple myeloma or like chemotherapy to me are much better to use than something like sick and going to the doctor.

Because then, you know, years later, something happened and your kid's sick and you're like, you're sick, you've got to go to the doctor. And he's having images of like his dad losing his hair from chemotherapy. And all of a sudden you're like, why is my kid so resistant going to the doctor? You're like, well, like they're probably making associations. But your son doesn't have multiple myeloma and he's not getting chemotherapy. So when you say you're sick, you're going to the doctor, he doesn't think it's in the same category, right? He understands it's different.

So to me, the way to start with a kid with any uncomfortable situation is giving a little framework. It's just saying, hey, I want to talk to you about something. You may have a lot of questions. You may have different feelings. I do too. Just want to get you ready for that kind of conversation. To me, that's very different than your kid's like about to watch TV, they think. And you're like, hey, your dad has multiple myeloma. And they're a little bit like, whoa, what? Like, you know, like totally taken off guard. So I'd encapsulate it a little bit. And then I'd use real words and be simple and direct.

Your dad has a type of illness, or maybe he's delivering it. Maybe he's saying, I do, right? I have a type of illness. Your dad has a type of illness called multiple myeloma. That's a type of sickness that he has. Kids are very egocentric. I don't have it and you don't have it. And we can't get it from being near him. It's not like a cold. We can't get it. So it's a type of sickness he has.

And he's getting a treatment for that sickness. And that treatment is called chemotherapy. And I'm going to keep going. You're going to tell me. I don't want to say something inaccurate. So feel free to jump in and be like, that's not really how it works because I'm definitely not an expert in these things. Right? And I just want to let you know the treatment chemotherapy that helps with the multiple myeloma, that's good, also makes him tired, might make him lose his hair.

might make him really sleepy. So you might notice in the next couple of weeks that dad, I'm just making this up, isn't able to take you to daycare on Friday like he usually does because he's getting the chemotherapy. So I'm going to do that. That's where he's going. And you might notice that dad's napping a little bit more. Do you know why? And I wouldn't be surprised if he goes, oh, because he's tired from the chemotherapy. Exactly. That's exactly right.

You also might have already noticed me crying more than usual. I'm crying because the multiple myeloma is something your dad's going through and we have to like figure out a lot of things for him. And so it's on my mind, it's hard. But you should know, even when I cry, I'm still your mom who can take care of you. Crying's just something we do when tricky things happen.

Right, now you don't have to give this all at once, but all of this in a way is language that's like, it's very simple. It's very not fear mongering. I'm not like explaining all the details of multiple myeloma to my four-year-old. If he asks, you're good, but like my guess is he probably won't. And I'm really focused on the way this is impacting him and his work. So things he might notice, and I'm giving him a story to understand, right?

Instead of kind of like crossing my fingers,

And like, I don't even know what I'm hoping. Am I hoping he doesn't notice? People would say he's not asking questions. Well, just because someone isn't asking questions doesn't mean they don't notice. And now they're just noticing and feeling confused and alone. I don't think any of us want that. So I'm trying to a little bit proactively fill in, you know, the blanks or thread some pieces of that quilt together. And then I think you can say something like, you're probably going to have questions at some point. And you can always come to me with your questions and something I promise you, as I'll always tell you the truth.

And then he's probably going to look at you. And the next thing he's going to say is, can I have my pretzels now? And you're going to be like, are you serious? Like, I just literally practiced that for like five days. And that's what you have to say. And it's easy to think, oh, they don't get it. Like, did that totally go over their head? No, it does not mean that. It's just a lot to digest. And, you know, like us, when we hear something that's tricky to digest, we're often like, yeah, yeah, I got to like process this. Like, give me time. So that's kids, you know, and I would just say, if he says that, like,

we can totally have pretzels now because look, life goes on in our house as usual. I can have pretzels and make you dinner. And yeah, I'm sure we'll end up talking about it here and there again. All right, pretzel time. If he asks questions, I'm happy to, you know, model how I'd go about that too. He might. But I think the key point is set up the conversation, use real words. When it comes to illness, naming out loud that you don't have it, your kid doesn't have it,

and nobody's getting it is super important because we take that for granted. But as kids are always assessing their safety, that's actually often what we think. And if we don't name that, they wonder about it. And then thinking about where in my kid's life is this really relevant? So if you're thinking, oh, like my partner always coaches my kid's soccer games and he won't be able to, that's really relevant for your kid to know. So really focusing on their world

Just like allowing it to sit and seeing where it goes from there. Tell me your thoughts. Yeah, I love that. That's very useful advice to use real words. I never thought about it that he might get sick and he might, of course, he would make a connotation. What do you think about...

Because you said use the word multiple myeloma. What about using the word cancer? Because I think I have a lot of anxiety around that. Someone told me that one of the kids at school, their grandma died, and they were like, did your dad die yet? So I think I just don't...

I think the thing with the word cancer, interestingly enough, is the reason it can feel extra scary to kids is because of, again, like the lack of specificity. So we all know cancer is like a huge range, right? There's some cancers that people live with. There's some cancers that...

unfortunately, people die very quickly, right? And so the problem with, there's no problem with saying the word cancer. But when you say it to a kid, what I would say is you might, again, I'm trying to get into a kid's mind, like what might happen. You might hear the word cancer and something you should know is your dad has one type of cancer called multiple myeloma or might someone else be like has, you know, lung cancer, whatever it is. And you might hear that word. There's a lot of types of cancer.

Some people live with cancer for a very long time. Some people die of cancer. And because it's not as specific as multiple myeloma, to me, it actually can lead to scarier things with kids, not because there's anything problematic about the word, just because it can get generalized to so many other people's stories and experiences that actually aren't the same as yours. So that's why I actually think multiple myeloma is super helpful, not because I'm trying to avoid the word cancer at all, but

But just because I can be a little bit more targeted in my kid having the word for what their father actually has. And yet the real words, like they matter so much. Like the other ones always backfire. You know, I remember a family coming to me for, you know, I think it was like their six-year-old time, massive sleep issues. So many sleep issues that like kind of happened out of nowhere. We totally worked through it. But one of the things that really gave me insight, because again, it's not like every family needs the same thing, was anxiety.

Like probably six months before the grandfather had died, but they told their kids grandfather went to sleep for a very long time. Well, they now haven't seen their grandfather in six months. And like, do I think that contributed to their kids' intense fear at night? Yeah, I really do. If you could go to sleep and never come back again, like that makes sleep really, so we think we avoid something. Because kids are trying to make sense of the world, we always end up

creating much bigger problems, you know? So die, death, multiple myeloma, chemotherapy. To me, first of all, it's empowering. You don't feel like you're lying. And it's actually clarifying and therefore very holding to a kid.

Yeah, it's interesting. My son is very interested in death too. He's asking about death a lot. So I guess that was also an additional burden on me and kind of, you know, was adding to my anxiety. How do I manage his anxiety of losing his dad? Yeah. Yeah.

Great question. So let's go there. I remember having this conversation. My son wasn't even three and there was no cancer that I had, but I remember him looking at me and saying, you could die at any time, right? Like you could, like at any moment, you could not come home. Like you could, you could just die. And I was like, wow, like, I can't believe we're having this conversation. You're not even three. But I think we don't realize for young kids, birth and death

They're interested in their private parts. They are. They're interested in how to make a baby and dying. I mean, if you think about it, as kids start to really wake up to the world and try to understand themselves in the world, you can't understand yourself in the world without understanding birth and death. So they're like very focused on the bookends of life. And it makes sense as they're trying to figure out what's going on around them. So...

Do you feel like he might just look at you and be like, is dad going to die of multiple myeloma? Like, is he the kind of kid he might just like say it just like that? Or is he going to die? Oh yeah, for sure. I just told him your grandma is turning 77 and he said, is she going to die? Yeah. So we can focus first on your husband's, but then we could also talk about that question with a grandma because I definitely have thoughts about how to answer that. What is the kind of medical truth of it? You said it's incurable. Is it incurable? People live with it in a chronic way. Is it incurable as in...

You're wrestling with a very sad reality of like, yeah, he will die of this in some amount of years. Yeah, I'm definitely, yeah. Well, nobody really knows. So the doctor, multiple myeloma specialist told us that three years ago when he was diagnosed that the survival rate is five, 10 years, right?

You know, Google says it's three, five years. But I know I actually met a few people that were cured from multiple myeloma. And I know there's plenty of people on the group, the Facebook group that I mentioned. I know that people live for 20, 30 years, even more.

There's constantly new drugs coming out. So, you know, it's interesting. My husband is actually a doctor and he works at the cancer center. And he, since the beginning, he was like, that's a good cancer to have. That's his attitude. Yeah. So first of all, thank you for sharing all this with me. I know it brings up some hard things to talk about. So,

You know, your son says, oh, is dad going to die of this? You know, I think based on what you just told me, right? Because I have to think like the answer usually is tell the truth. Like, you know, like it's like there's something simple about coming to that. Like, is dad going to die of this? I want to tell you the truth, sweetie. Like, we don't know. We don't know. And something I've said to my kids about different things from an early age is something you can count on in this family is I will always tell you the truth.

Even when it's uncomfortable, always. And the truth is we don't know. We know he's seeing good doctors. And if this is true, I'd say, we know he's not dying now. His doctors aren't worried about him dying now. I don't know if that's true. If it is, I'd say that. We know that there's a lot of doctors doing something called research, trying to find more medicines to help multiple myeloma. And I know that when we know more, I'll share it with you.

My husband is doing great overall. I think that's why he's reacting to chemo very well. That was also the reason why we weren't really bringing it up to my son, but...

So then I think you could also say, if that's true, you could say, is dad dying of this? No, he's responding really well to chemotherapy. He's not dying. Right? Like I just, I could, that's totally true too. Right? So no, he's not. I mean, me and you know, we all die of something. Right? So like, but the answer for right now is no. Right? So you could, you could say that. Another way of kind of speaking back to that question about his

his dad, about his grandma, which I think is really helpful for kids who, I used to always say to my son, like, you're a kid with a busy brain, and it can be hard to be a kid with a busy brain. Like, always just, like, thinking about these deep things. And, you know, oh, is grandma 70-something? She's going to die soon? She'd be like, wow, death is really on your mind. You're really thinking about dying and how long people live. Like, you're thinking about grandma and how many years she's going to still be here, huh? Yeah.

Like in some ways you're just like helping them encapsulate and understand their own thinking process, right? And sometimes validating that is actually what a kid's looking for. You know, and they're like, yeah. And then sometimes kids like, yeah, so will she? So will she? You know what I mean? And then they're like, okay, like now they're clearly want something else from me. But sometimes I would say that to my kids often. Like, you're really thinking about death. Like you're really thinking about it. It's really on your mind. Seems hard to think about anything else right now. You're really worried about that.

You're really worried about that right now, I can tell you. And so instead of almost just taking their question at face value, I'm almost doing more, I'm like looking into their mind and noticing the thing they're a little bit consumed by. And that can feel really holding, right? I imagine you...

I don't know, let's pretend you wanted to move. And you're like, what about this place? And what about this place? And what about this place? If your partner just answered each question, that would be different than like, wow, you're really thinking about moving, huh? Like in some ways it's like more representative of what's happening than each individual question.

And look, with this conversation, I mean it. Like, do I think it's wrong to not tell your kid? I don't. Like, I get that. And that's why I think families have to take information and values they have and combine it with like the information only they know about what's happening in front of them and what feels right. And even after this, if you're like, you know what?

I just still don't think it's right to tell him. I would tell you, then you shouldn't tell him. I don't know what's right. I do think sometimes when we think about talking to kids about tricky topics, we feel at a loss for words. So I feel very invested in giving parents words to be able to explain things in straightforward ways. But that's not a way of saying I think they always should.

It's just nice to have options to say, if I'm going to say it, I think this resonates or I'm going to change it a little bit, but also that I still very much have the option of saying, you know what, I'm just going to like wait a couple more months and see how it plays out. Like that's again, like you're the expert in your family. It's just nice to feel equipped, you know, with different pathways. Totally. No, I know that I wanted to tell him he was, he saw my husband feeling really weak yesterday and, uh,

He woke up like five times at night. It was very upset. So, so yeah, I definitely, I wanted to tell him I'm committed to telling him. I just didn't have the words. I just didn't have the specific script. So thank you so much for that. And look, I also just want to say before we end,

You know, having a sick partner, thinking about how to communicate with our kid, give another kid you take care of too. Like I mean this and you probably know I'm like a champion for this. Like you get lost in the mix, like or can easily get lost in the mix of like the different people we're all caring for. So being the partner of someone, you know, with a chronic condition and helping caregiver for them and caregiver for your kids and manage these conversations, like it's taxing and just want to like name that.

and remind you to put those things in your calendar, to speak to yourself in the way. It's also like nourishing and honoring for you. Thanks for listening. To share a story or ask me a question, go to goodinside.com slash podcast. You could also write me at podcast at goodinside.com. Parenting is the hardest and most important job in the world.

And parents deserve resources and support so they feel empowered, confident, and connected. I'm so excited to share Good Inside Membership, the first platform that brings together content and experts you trust with a global community of like-valued parents. It's totally game-changing.

Good Inside with Dr. Becky is produced by Jesse Baker and Eric Newsom at Magnificent Noise. Our production staff includes Sabrina Farhi, Julia Knatt, and Kristen Muller. I would also like to thank Eric Obelski, Mary Panico, and the rest of the Good Inside team. And one last thing before I let you go. Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves, even as I struggle,

And even as I have a hard time on the outside, I remain good inside.