By Laura DeKraker Lang-Ree, childhood cancer advocate, speaker, and bestselling author of The Cancer Parent’s Handbook: What Your Oncologist Doesn’t Have Time to Tell You
The classic children’s song about love in a family was our family’s theme song when the kids were growing up -you know the one? We would belt out the lyrics every time they came on in the car. Singing them out loud made us feel powerful and safe, and we knew that’s what we wanted to be forever: a connected family that truly understood what mattered—love in our family.
Cancer tried its best to rip that apart when our daughter Cecilia was diagnosed with ALL. But our persistence, intention-setting, and Positude (positive attitude) kept us grounded and committed to each other. And in this blog, I’ll teach you how to do the same with a few tried and true tips for managing caregiver stress, preserving partnerships, and finding balance amidst chaos.
Relationships of all kinds take a back seat during cancer treatment because your focus zeroes in on the crisis at hand and saps all your energy. Siblings of a cancer patient suffer when, suddenly and without warning, everything in their world is turned upside down. They can feel like they are being ignored, left in the dark, which fills them with fear and anger while their anxiety rises. And, they simply miss you and your family unit when you are at the hospital.
Many kids also find themselves jealous of the attention their sibling is getting and feel ashamed of those feelings. That’s quite a mixed bag of emotions for a child of any age to handle.
Taking Care ~ Of All of You
Learning how to carve out time for all your children and yourself, while establishing healthy communication about treatment as a family, is imperative during treatment. Why? Because all of you are dealing with cancer, not just the patient in the house. The way your family responds to the demands of treatment and how you talk about your frustrations and worries (or not) impacts how you will get through this experience. You want your family to get through this stronger, not be torn apart by years of disconnection, right? But statistically, relationships suffer when a child has a long-term illness because tensions and anxieties mount over time unless they are addressed.
There are solid strategies you can use, starting right now, to avoid becoming a statistic as a family and as a couple if you are in a relationship. Let’s get to it.
Tangible Tips for Your Whole Family
1. Create Your Hero Squad
As much as you want to crawl back under the blankets after getting a cancer diagnosis, life in the childhood cancer world quickly demands that you wake up, pay close attention, and get organized as you become the unwitting advocate and gatekeeper for your child’s treatment years and follow-up care while taking care of the rest of your family. And nobody tells you this is what you’ve signed up for, at least not in the medical community—they are busy saving your child’s life, after all.
You need what I call ~ Your Hero Support.
When your child is diagnosed, it’s important to remember that your friends and family are in shock too, so in the beginning, they may not be super helpful. Grandparents suffer; close friends and their children do as well. Sometimes their fear results in silence or a seeming absence from your life as they navigate their own feelings and process their own fears and “give you space.” This can be hard to bear from people you love and who you thought loved you back.
Try to remember that the “C” word freaks everybody out, and friends and family rarely get what you are going through. How could they? Instead of suffering in silence and frustration, empower them. Tell them what you need!
Toolbox Tip
Ask one good friend to help you figure out what you need, and then let them organize your Hero Support Team (neighbors, playgroup, soccer team parents, or colleagues). Most people truly want to help, they just don’t know how.
What can you ask for? Anything and everything that will make your family life run more smoothly, from regular meal deliveries to driving siblings to their events, weekly errands and regular baby sitting.
2. Establish a Schedule
Now that you have your Hero Support in place, you can make strides to keep your family’s routines going.
During a family trauma, kids become angry when they are not getting their fair share of attention during their sibling’s treatment, and they simultaneously worry deeply about what their sibling is going through. As parents and caregivers, we might can be gone for days or weeks at a time for treatment, which means that the rest of the family’s schedule is disrupted or canceled altogether because you are not there. But keeping your other children’s routines going can help them stay grounded, happy and centered as they process what their sibling is going through. That might look like:
- Aiming to keep them in school/pre-school
- Allowing them to spend time with their friends
- Keeping them involved in their after-school activities, like choir or soccer
Toolbox Tip:
Ask the teacher of your child’s choir or soccer team to send out an email or text from you, explaining that one of your children is in treatment for cancer, and getting sick can be dangerous for them. Ask them to keep their kids home if they are ill, and make efforts not to spread germs. Or, request that they inform you if their kid has the sniffles so you can decide whether to keep your child home.
In addition to keeping your other children’s schedule going, remember to carve out moments of 1-1 time with just them. Let them plan the ‘date’ and keep it simple. Maybe it’s a date at the park, sharing a book, or going out for pizza. Give each child the time and space to talk (or not) and indulge them with words and love so they feel seen, too. Strive for some 1-1 time once a week, even for a few minutes.
3. Put Your Oxygen Mask on FIRST
As parents of kids with cancer, we spend most of our waking moments thinking about and obsessing over every aspect of our child’s mental and physical health. Perfectly natural. But what about you?
You are Person #1 for your child in normal times, and now you find yourself as their health advocate for a life-threatening illness. That’s a mighty big undertaking. You might also be juggling a job, other children, parents, and a partner or spouse, so the idea of putting yourself first can seem selfish. But it’s essential. Commit to putting your oxygen mask on first and learn to thrive, yes thrive, despite your circumstances.
One key way to put your oxygen mask on first is to make sure you are not doing this alone. With the help of your spouse, partner or friend, establish a schedule so that you rotate who is going to the hospital for treatment or in-patient stays so that you can find some space to re-fuel yourself with whatever is nourishing for you.
Toolbox Tip
Ask your Hero Support Team for regular Friday night babysitting so that you can take a break, or have them visit you while inpatient and let them hang out with your kid while you grab some sunshine and a coffee.
When people ask, “What do you need”? Advocate for yourself by telling them! Maybe it’s a massage once a month, or dinner delivery so you don’t have to think. Pick something that you know will help you restore your sanity, then ask openly. You’ll give it back tenfold later to someone else.
3. Remember The Romance Baby
Taking care of your partner romantically takes a back seat when cancer calls. It’s easy to be upset and tearful, especially with those we trust the most. But being grumpy with each other won’t make anything better. In the early months, my husband and I often found ourselves in random bad moods, sniping at each other for no specific reason while we held it together with everyone else. Cancer is all-consuming, and it takes priority over everything. It’s not surprising that the majority of parents see negative changes in the amount of fun they have with their partner, as well as overall closeness. It takes intention and attention not to become a statistic.
Here’s the trick: nurture yourself and your love with regular self-care moments and date nights. Yes, I know that sounds frivolous, maybe even ridiculous. But you must take care of yourself first, and then your partnership. This is the foundation for a strong family. It’s normal to become tactical and transactional in those early months after diagnosis. Time together puts you as the priority and strengthens your ability to advocate and care for your family.
Toolbox Tip:
When friends and family are wondering how they can support you, ask for a regular babysitter.
- Take a walk to a nearby park and hold hands
- Sit at the beach together and read a trashy novel for an hour
- Go to the movies
- Hit your favorite pizza joint and just chat
- If you have the energy, get all dressed up and see a concert
4. Include the Sibs
When a child is diagnosed and treatment begins, stress and anxiety levels rise in your other children as they are forced to deal with big, scary questions:
- “Will my sister die?”
- “When will Mom and Dad come home?”
- “Will I get this, too?”
- “What about me?”
Left unchecked, anxiety can lead your family members to show elevated levels of PTSD, experience negative emotional reactions, and report being unhappy with life years after treatment ends. Just like their parents. They need to be spoken to in age-appropriate ways, of course. That’s why it’s so important to find the time to connect with your kids, to keep them as informed as possible, and to open up conversations so their voice is heard.
Our baby, Madi, was fifteen months old at the time of her big sister’s diagnosis, and she knew something bad was up. Initially, we thought we would spare Madi from the reality of our trauma, especially in the early months. Madi’s initial reaction to us leaving her behind when we went to the hospital—crying jags, clinginess, overall sadness—broke my heart. Within a matter of weeks, it became clear what she was telling me: she needed a job.
She taught me that children want and need to be deeply involved with everyday treatment life to normalize it. Her fear of the unknown was much worse than actually being a part of it all. So, from then on, Madi went with us everywhere, from bike riding with her sis to labs, to holding her hand for weekly methotrexate shots in the leg, and whale breathing along with her during IV insertions at the hospital. It didn’t matter that Madi was too young to understand all the scary details (nor did we tell her). She knew this was a family journey, clearly advocated for her needed, and told us clearly that she needed to be on board.
Trust your child, no matter how young, to step up. They most likely will if you let them.
Toolbox Tip:
If you are hospitalized, create new family rituals that keep you together. This could include dinner via FaceTime with the same pizza delivery, or bringing the whole family to the hospital for take-out and a movie.
If your treatment schedule includes regular labs and you have little ones at home, advocate for your family and ask your team if you can do them locally and turn it into an adventure! One of my favorite routines was piling the kids in the bike trailer with books and yummy snacks, riding around the neighborhood for a workout for me, and ending up at the lab. While Cecilia sat on my lap and did her ‘whale breathing’, Madi held her hand, and we were outta there with no drama, headed for bagels. This is a great way to establish a new routine that involves the whole family, takes care of business and involves a little bit of joy.
5. Therapy
Our local childhood cancer support group, Jacob’s Heart, had an incredible program called Art from the Heart. Volunteers helped our kids play and create beautiful art while processing their feelings, and we benefited greatly from concurrent free couples’ therapy. With our therapist, my husband and I cried, vented, processed, and sought solutions to bring us together versus tearing us apart. One of the main things we learned from therapy was the concept of surrendering and acceptance, and the power of finding both in our lives.
After the first month of Cecilia’s cancer treatment, we were burned out and we couldn’t see or understand how we were going to make it through two-and-a-half years of treatment, let alone another week or another day. Through therapy, we learned that accepting that she had cancer and surrendering to the reality that she would be in treatment for a long time, was the first step in finding our coping strategies.
Therapy, during treatment and after, can give you a safe place to be, permission to process the grief, and a plan of action.
Toolbox Tip
Check with your hospital Social Worker or Child LIfe Services advocate to see if your area has childhood cancer groups that offer therapy for everyone in the family, most often for free.
Gratitude ~
Your child—and their siblings—are looking to you as a mirror. The way you respond to crisis shapes how they understand and navigate it themselves. Gratitude doesn’t erase pain or injustice, but it does help reframe your story so your family isn’t swallowed by trauma. Noticing what you still have creates space for hope and resilience. It also calms your nervous system. And when you’re grounded, you’re better able to process information, make clear decisions, and advocate effectively. Gratitude helps you make that switch.
You might be thinking, right NOW? What exactly do I have to be grateful for when my kid has been diagnosed with cancer? That’s exactly how I felt when somebody introduced me to gratitude journaling during our treatment years.
A gratitude journal turned out to be a life-changer, grounding me in the present and forcing me to look for moments of light and joy in my day throughout treatment. And it gave me the bandwidth to advocate for what is best for my family both in the hospital and at home.
When you can focus on the little things and find joy in the smile on your child’s face, a hot cup of your favorite tea, or a day without tears, life becomes much lighter. Your resilience builds up as you realize there is still good in the world and you are able to see where you need to take action and where you can chill out.
Toolbox Tip:
Include the whole family by starting a Roses and Thorns practice, and allow everyone to share both the difficult and the joyful parts of their day. You’ll become stronger together.
I wrote The Cancer Parent’s Handbook: What Your Oncologist Doesn’t Have Time to Tell You because it’s the guidebook I needed when I was in your shoes and the one all of us need and deserve. You’ll find so much more on this topic in my book, including full chapters on supporting siblings, the art of asking for help, and creating your new normal—plus additional tools and articles on my website to help you find your way.
You don’t have to do this alone. I’ve got you.
About the Author
Laura DeKraker Lang-Ree is a speaker, writer, and fierce advocate for parents navigating pediatric cancer. Her bestselling book, The Cancer Parent’s Handbook: What Your Oncologist Doesn’t Have Time to Tell You, is a no-nonsense survival guide for overwhelmed caregivers. Follow Laura on Instagram @cancerparentshandbook or connect on LinkedIn.
👉 Grab the book: Amazon or at books2read