Customer Reviews

How to Help Children Through a Parent's Serious Illness

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How to Help Children Through a Parent's Serious Illness is a wondeful resource for professional and home use! There are so many books designed to help children and parents with a child's illness but practically nothing available to help the children of adult patients deal with an adult illness, accident, or death. Kathleen and Ron are skillful and concise in sharing dozens of pointers and case examples that will help any adult in this situation. I work in a hospital and refer to the book often. We've shared it with nurses and doctors-all have found it "right on target". I know it would be a wonderful resource for use at home too. Two thumbs up to Kathleen and Ron for filling a big gap!

My husband was diagnosed with cancer when our daughter was just 9 months old. We are a little over 2 years into our struggle with his illness. I found McCue and Bonn's book immensly helpful at this difficult time. It covers everything from diagnosis, to coming home from the hospital or, God forbid, the parent's death. It also covers long term illnesses. The book is filled with practical advice. If you are struggling with a very sick parent (or other loved one) in your family right now, you need all the help you can get. After reading this book, I feel like I have the tools to help my daughter through this process whatever the outcome might be. It was incredibly helpful.

This book is a tremendous resource for families who are facing serious illness and approaching death. The book gave me helpful advice on when to seek counseling help for my children, signals of depression and failure to cope in children, how to explain about hereditary diseases, and how to help children prepare to visit the hospital. In my own situation, my husband has a progressive muscular disease that has affected his lung/breathing processes. This disease can result in immediate death and I felt that my children needed to be prepared for that. I actually handled my chidlren's first trip to the hospital badly and they both reacted negatively--I wish I would have had this resource then! From time to time I refer back to this helpful book whenever a new situation arises and after reading it, I feel that I have a better understanding of how children see an illness, how they react to it, and how to explain it to them. I'd really like to see a sequel to it that goes into areas such as what to do when the kids are in denial and don't want to know; dealing with relatives who disagree with the methods chosen on helping the child deal with the illness, and how to handle emergencies that happen at home with the ill parent. In any case, this book is a necessity for families!

This book was a godsend. I received it from a school psychologist when my children were in grade school and my husband was dying of cancer. I wished I had it so much sooner, but even as it was late in the illness it helped me so much and reassured me that I was doing well in how I had dealt with my children and my husband's illness so far (as opposed to scaring them for life, which is what I was afraid of) It also gave me some guidelines in dealing with the end of life and insuring that I addressed the situation and dealt with my children in as healthy a way and as clearly as possible. I have since given this book to several families who had an illness in the family even if it wasn't life threatening.

It helped me more than I can say. It was like a handbook to help guide me and my children through this awful time. It has been 11 years since my husband's death and my children are both happy, healthy and amazing adults. I have read many books on dying and grief and this is by far the most helpful and useful resource I have found.

In short I have two main criticisms of this book: 1) The author is quite impressed with herself and I found the examples were more about her than the potential positive impact on the chilren and often there appeared to be some real professional boundaries breached. 2) The focus of the book was on younger children and I was looking for insight related to my 11 and 15 year old nephews.