Send a Cancer Gift Box From Rock the Treatment When Your Child’s Friend Has Cancer
When a child has cancer, it is never easy. Not for the patient, their families, or their friends. When your child has a friend with cancer, as difficult as it can be, it can present an opportunity to teach your child about empathy, kindness, and helping. It can also allow you to help your child develop healthy ways to process negative or sad feelings.
Like adults, most children, when they learn a friend has cancer, want to do something to help. At Rock the Treatment, we make it easy to show a child with cancer that you care. We have cancer gift boxes for children getting chemotherapy and radiation. Our boxes contain items proven to help kids combat the physical and emotional side effects of cancer treatments.
What Can You Do To Help Your Child When a Friend Is Diagnosed With Cancer?
Sending a gift to your child’s friend with cancer is the easy part. How can you assist your child in navigating this difficult and scary time?
Kidshealth.org provides some suggestions you can share with your child that might make it easier for them to be a good friend and help a peer who has cancer.
Visit and Stay in Touch – Visiting can be hard, especially during a pandemic. Kids with cancer often have compromised immune systems and must avoid unnecessary exposure to potential illnesses. Luckily, there are many ways to remain in contact, so patients feel less lonely and isolated. Encourage your child to facetime, zoom, call or text regularly (alone or in groups.)
Be Yourself – Help your child understand that it is normal to feel scared or anxious around someone with cancer but that the patient is still their friend. All of the feelings your child might have – guilt, fear, anger – are normal and are likely being experienced by their friend also. The more time they spend together, the more ordinary things will feel and the easier it will be for the kids to maintain a healthy relationship.
Learn About Cancer – Depending on the age of your child and the patient, share some information about cancer with your child. Help them to understand some of the medical and scientific things that might be occurring and how treatments can work. You might also explain how treatments might have side effects and how they can make the friend feel and look sometimes.
It is OK to Talk About Cancer – Your child probably has a million questions. Encourage conversations that can provide them with access to the answers.
Be a Good Listener – This might be a good opportunity to teach your child about the importance of listening to what someone is saying and recognizing what they are not saying. Your child’s friend might want to talk about their cancer, answer questions, or vent about what is happening. They also might want to play, do whatever activities they used to enjoy with your child, or talk about anything but their illness.
Try to encourage your child to “go with the flow” and allow the patient to lead the way when it comes to talking about their cancer.
Offer to Help – Your child might be able to bring homework from school, help with assignments, or find creative ways to cheer up their friend.
There are plenty of ways children can be good friends and provide assistance to someone with cancer-they just might need some help from the adults in their lives.
Take Care of Yourself Too – Having a friend with cancer can be hard on even the strongest child at any age. It can conjure up feelings of sadness, fear, depression, anger, confusion, and more. Encourage your child to talk about their feelings, write in a journal or enlist professional help if necessary.
What is an Easy Way to Show You Care? Send a Children’s Cancer Gift Box From Rock the Treatment
Helping your child navigate a friend’s cancer diagnosis is hard. We aim to make it a little easier for you with our healthy cancer gift boxes full of items proven to bring relief to people with cancer.
At Rock the Treatment, we make it easy to let someone with cancer know you care and support them on their difficult journey. If someone you love has cancer, send a helpful cancer gift basket from Rock The Treatment. Chemotherapy and radiation gift baskets are packed with the essentials needed to ease side effects of treatment, as well as enhance physical and mental well-being. See all of our cancer care packages and find the one that best supports their journey.
