Tips for Talking to Adult Children About Your Mesothelioma
Health & Wellness
Written by Dana Nolan, MS, LMHC | Edited By Amy Edel
When we become parents, we take on many roles such as provider, guardian, teacher and comforter. As our children grow into adults and live their lives independently from us, our relationships with them change. Our roles may transform, but we never stop worrying about our children’s wellbeing and most parents still feel protective of their adult children.
When we’re given a serious medical diagnosis such as mesothelioma, it’s understandable we don’t want to worry our adult children or cause them distress. It’s tempting to not disclose our mesothelioma diagnosis or the extent of our disease to our adult children to protect their feelings.
While this approach is well intentioned, it can backfire. Would you want your child to keep news of a serious diagnosis from you just because they didn’t want to upset or worry you? Most people admit they wouldn’t want their children to hide a serious medical issue to protect their feelings. And our adult children will usually find out the truth about our health eventually.
Considerations When Discussing Your Mesothelioma Diagnosis
There is no “one size fits all” approach to talking to our adult children about our health issues. It’s helpful to assess the pros and cons of disclosure.
Ideally, disclosing our health information will allow us to receive emotional support and practical assistance should we need it from our children. Sharing our experience coping with mesothelioma, our thoughts and our feelings may help us to feel closer to our adult children.
However, if we value privacy and we know our child(ren) struggle to keep private information confidential, we may preface any discussion with a clear request to keep our health information private. If you discover they don’t respect that request, then you may decide to limit sharing future information with them.
Another consideration is whether we believe our adult child will support our treatment decisions. Will they try to influence us to seek other mesothelioma treatment options we’re not comfortable with? Ideally, our loved ones will support our treatment choices even if they don’t agree with them.
Sometimes our adult children may be going through their own health or life challenges making them unavailable or unable to support us. It’s okay to consider whether our children have the capability right now for this serious conversation or to support us. We can adjust our expectations accordingly.
Tips for Starting the Conversation With Your Adult Children
Having tough conversations about mesothelioma with our adult children isn’t easy. However, if you decide to open up to them, these tips for preparing for the conversation should make it a little bit easier.
Think about ways your adult child can support you and ask for that specifically. Most adult children want to be helpful if they can, but may not know exactly what help you may need.
- Would you like to spend more time with your children?
- Do you want to call or video chat more often?
- Would you want them to join your medical appointments in person or via phone or video chat to get updates in real time?
- Can they help with chores or tasks that may take too much of your energy?
- Do you need their help after a surgical procedure?
If you decide to be open with your adult children about your mesothelioma diagnosis and treatment, it’s okay to do so in a way that makes you feel comfortable at the time. It’s okay to maintain healthy boundaries.
It can be hard for parents to feel like they’ve switched roles, allowing adult children to help while dealing with mesothelioma. But one way to view this role reversal is it can help our adult children feel like they’re actively helping you feel better. Letting your adult children play a role in supporting you can be mutually beneficial.
