Although the physical health of kids with cancer is often top-of-mind, it doesn’t mean other types of health – including mental health – can be put on the back burner. While your child goes through their cancer journey, doing your best to protect and promote their mental well-being improves outcomes.

Before we dive into a few ways you, as a parent or guardian, can help your child with cancer maintain good mental health, it’s important to recognize how cancer can impact mental and emotional well-being.

The Mental Health Realities of Pediatric Cancer

Cancer is traumatic. We’ve seen that survivors may struggle with PTSD, particularly in cases that involve invasive procedures or severe side effects. Cancer patients may deal with anxiety and depression, poor sleep quality, stress, and general coping. It’s hard enough to wrestle with the fears and stressors of cancer as an adult, but children are particularly vulnerable.

Here’s how you can provide tools and opportunities for mental well-being during and after your child’s treatment.

How to Support Mental Health for Your Child with Cancer

#1 – Identify a support network.

Both you and your child need support. This can come from different people and places. Some turn to online or in-person support groups. Others connect with fellow patients and survivors. For some, family or individual therapy is beneficial. Others may want to involve a pastor or chaplain in their care. Regardless of who you turn to, prioritize a source of social and emotional support.

Being able to share and express difficult emotions not only offers an outlet and a release, but it invites others to share their love and support. You don’t have to go through it alone and neither does your child.

#2 – Create opportunities to express agency.

Children with cancer often have very little say in what happens to them. Other people are making medical decisions on their behalf, and even if they have a say, they may feel as if they have no choice. Feeling unsure, scared, and out of control creates mental health risks.

As a parent, you must give your child opportunities to express control over their circumstances, even in small or inconsequential ways. Let them choose whenever there’s an opportunity. Ask them what they want to eat, what will make them feel better, and how they want to spend their time. While you may not be able to satisfy all their desires, being able to control something can return a lost sense of security.

Similarly, you want to encourage healthy coping mechanisms. Give your child the freedom to express themselves, be it in words, art, or journaling. Help them find activities and hobbies that relieve stress. Let your child be themselves. Cancer can’t take away who they are.

#3 – Be there.

As a parent of a cancer patient, we know you have a lot going on. You’re juggling schedules and logistics, making big medical decisions, and handling costs and insurance, all while continuing to manage a household and care for your family. It’s a lot. And as a parent, we know you don’t want to scare your kids. You want to put a strong face forward.

But you must be there for your child. That means opening up with sincerity, honesty, and empathy. Don’t get so wrapped up in taking care of the physical that you neglect the emotional. Give hugs. Listen to frustrations. Cry with your child. Offer words of encouragement.

Sometimes the best thing you can do for your child is to be present and engaged.

#4 – Prioritize your mental well-being.

Parents and guardians, listen closely: your mental health is on the line here, too. When your child is going through their cancer journey, you’re going to be faced with many similar mental health risks. You’ll worry and stress and feel anxious and angry and depressed.

You’ve got to take care of your mental health so that you can be the best support possible for your child. You can’t pour out from an empty cup. Take the initiative here – find your support network, get into counseling or therapy, or lean on your faith tradition.

Do what you need to do to be in a good mental place to be the best you can be for your child’s sake. It provides more stability, comfort, and hope than you may realize.