Silberman,+Childhood+Recovery+of+Parent+Cancer

I chose Childhood Recover of Parent Cancer because I am a Breast Cancer survivor. When I was diagnosed, I was 37 years old and my daughter had just turned 10 years old.

The five most important things I Iearned were:
 * 1) So honestly- my greatest learning did not come from what I read or researched and presented here. I have advocated for women who have been diagnosed with cancer, as well as spoke in public forums about Breast Cancer ranging from the affects and effects of treatment and beyond.Instead my greatest learning came from the tears I shed as I reflected on my perspective of what my daughters' experience was, and how I didn't know about many of the options I found throughout this project. The truth of the matter- my truth- was at the time I was to busy trying to fight to stay alive. Of course I cared about my daughter and was worried sick for her. I followed my gut, bought compassion books and took her to Cancer Groups so she could hear" Hello my name is -- and I've been a SURVIVOR for x amount of time. Beyond that I didn't know much about anything and find it very sad that for many there is not a "multidisciplinary" team for every patient as is so often indicated in my research findings.
 * 2) PsycoSocial Oncolgy is a field of its' own.
 * 3) The psyco-oncological needs of children are starting to be addressed beyond talk therapy.
 * 4) There are amazing programs out there the best one that I found so far is the Children's Treehouse.
 * 5) This particular topic is so specific and is hard to find "free" in depth information for! I weeded through a lot of sites and organizations. It felt as though when I got to the part of child recover it was very -vanilla---. I would hope as the funding matches the importance of this arena there would be more options ad media types available. I don't think many children are going to read peer reviewed articles, and, quite frankly most that have just been diagnosed are too overwhelmed to stack one more thing on there plate.

If you had only time for one resource. I'd suggest # 5 because ot os rated 5/5 and a truly unique resource!

Eight Resources

I found this resource on a Google Search. I was "feeling lucky" and struck gold! I would rate this a 5/5. This is a peer reviewed article from Primary Psychiatry. The article is titled How Children Live with Parental Cancer. This article was an easy read considering the clinical nature of my topic. In particular I liked that is addressed latency age children as well as adolesence aged children. The focus of this article was helping parents comprehend how their chidren's understanding of the cancer will vary by age and even at times sex of the child:depending on the cancer. The article cited breast cancer and daughters; this mirrored my won experience so I was particularly interested. There were suggestions of how parents could ease their children's distress through a host of mechanisms.This article also enforced the idea of coordination of service delivery by the multi-disciplinary team. The team can work to reduce stresses of the child.
 * 1

[]

I found this resource on Wiley Library. Since I haven't actually read the article I can only give this resource a 1/5. While I think it might be a jewel I can't really tell because you have to have a member ship to the site or suggest the title to your local librarian. This being said my topic is very specific and the abstract indicates it would discuss my topic with the added twist of a Korean cultural framework. Cancer effects people regardless of their culture and all cultures have children. The Impact of Breast Cancer on Mother–child Relationships in Korea
 * 2

http://www.y-me.org/survivorship/talking-children
 * 1) 3 I found this resource on Y-Me Breast Cancer Support today. I would rate this source a 2/5. This website has a variety of links. The page I navigated to was about talking to children about a Breast Cancer Diagnosis. It only offered a few lines for each age group. The valuable piece on this page was a toll free number that is staffed 24 hours a day. This alone could help someone, and knowing that the person on the other end has gone through Cancer can be powerful and give a sense of hope. A flag for me would be that all though the staff has been trained to talk to people, how do we know what their background is as far as ability on giving help or advice in this area. The flip side of that is they are apt to be compassionate and be a valuable resource is a diagnosed person has particular questions e,g what local resources are there for my child(ren) albeit groups or camps.

Multi-Media Presentation A Family's Journey Through Life and Death of a Paren't Cancer
 * 1) 4 I found this resource Delicious.com. I would rate this source 4/5. This multi-media presentation brings you along on a families journey with the diagnosis and death from liver cancer. The family of five documents their thoughts and feelings throughtout the illness and even afterwards. The children in the family ranged from 4years old-highschool. The time from daignosis to death was aproximately 3 years. During this multi-media presentation it was powerful and sad to watch the children deal with their emoitons of loosing their mother. In another way it was beautiful to see how a communtiy comes together to help one another, and how for one child his help came from a specailized camp(SUWS) for children. While this video is not a script for how to help children in recovery it shows how children, these children, moved inside their world. For me this presentation was was very emotional. At the end of the media presentation their are links that describe how the project took place as well as links for the SUWS camp and few others as well.


 * 1) 5 I found this resource on a Google Search. I would rate this a 5/5! This organization is incredible and truly one of a kind. Their mission statements is

WE ENVISION A WORLD WHERE PREVENTING THE INEVITABLE PSYCHOSOCIAL IMPACT ON CHILDREN WHOSE PARENTS HAVE CANCER IS TAKEN AS SERIOUSLY AS FINDING A CURE FOR CANCER ITSELF. The Children's Treehouse's programs acronym is CLIMB=Children's Life Include Moments of Bravery After reading this I was hooked in and discovered that this is nation’s //**only**// organization providing hospital-based, cancer-focused, psychosocial intervention training and programming dedicated to improving the emotional health of children whose parents have cancer. cCLIMPA The Children's Tree House

The Mother's Living Storie's Project- a list of practical resources dedicated to the cause!
 * 1) 6 I found this link as a spin off from Breast Cancer organization. I would rate this a 3/5. The site offers links for a variety of practical free resources including compassion books for children.

Parental Cancer and the Family
 * 1) 7 I found this link on Wiley the online library. I would rate this a 1/5. This article is a quantitative analysis of the population base of survivors residing with minors. The title seemed as though it would over more than it did.

When Your Parent Has Cancer
 * 1) 8 I found this link on cancer.gov. I would rate it a 3/5 This is a PDF of a brochure that goes over the "basics" of cancer. This particular brochure has the teen population as its' audience.



As I have looked for resources for this topic, I have found many keys. I offer these keys for you to pick and open any door you choose. While some sites I have navigated, read, and further researched some didn't quite have what //I// was looking for, however, I they might be the right //key// for you. Key 1 http://www.campkesem.org/

Key 2 The Below is a book or PDF link one can buy for $34.95 This is the abstract:

Abstract
Despite the high rates of breast cancer in the child-rearing mother, there is extremely limited research on the effects of the illness on the children, marriage, and parent-child relationship. The current study tested an explanatory model of family functioning with breast cancer based on data obtained from standardized questionnaires from 80 diagnosed mothers and partners with young school-age children. Path analysis results for data obtained from both the mothers and the partners revealed a similar pattern. More frequently experienced illness demands were associated with higher levels of parental depressed mood which negatively affected the marriage. When the marriage was less well adjusted, it negatively affected the family''s coping behavior. Household functioning was positively affected by heightened coping activity and by higher levels of marital adjustment. Children functioned better when the non-ill parent more frequently interacted with them and their families coped more frequently with their problems.  Key words family functioning - breast cancer - model development  This research was supported by a grant from the Center for Nursing Research, National Institutes of Health (R01-NR-01000), and an American Cancer Society Oncology Nursing Professorship awarded to the senior author. The family's functioning with newly diagnosed breast cancer in the mother: The development of an explanatory model

Key 3

Adolescent Adjustment and Maternal Breast Cancer

Abstract
 This study investigated the effects of parental functioning on adolescent adjustment during the acute phase of treatment for mothers diagnosed with breast cancer. Data from self-and parent-report questionnaires were obtained in the homes of 87 adolescents and 174 parents within six months of the mother's diagnosis. Associations between adolescent adjustment (self-esteem, behavioral problems, anxiety) and parental functioning (depressed mood, parenting quality, and marital adjustment) were examined when neither, one, or both parents were functioning at compromised levels. When both parents had depressed mood, adolescents tended to show increased behavioral problems; maternal depressed mood was the main source of influence. When the quality of the parenting relationship between the adolescent and both parents was poor, adolescents showed significantly lowered self-esteem and increased anxiety. Marital adjustment did not affect adolescent functioning significantly. Maternal depressed mood and the quality of the parent-child relationship significantly influenced adolescent adjustment during the acute phase of the mother's breast cancer.