When a Parent has Cancer

A Guide to Caring for Your Children

with Becky and the Worry Cup

Click here to watch Katie Couric interview

Harpham’s bookset has a reputation of being “the best book” for families facing the twin tasks of raising children while dealing with a parent’s cancer or other serious illness. It was awarded the 2006 Consumer Book Award by the American Journal of Nursing. Written from the heart of experience, Dr. Harpham—physician, long-term cancer survivor, wife and mother of three—offers clear, direct and sympathetic advice for parents, concerned others, and the children.
Dr. Harpham lays the groundwork of her book, When a Parent has Cancer, with specific plans for helping children through the upheaval of a parent’s diagnosis and treatment, remission and recovery, and, if necessary, confronting the possibility of death. With full understanding of the difficulty of achieving balance in the midst of change, she emphasizes the importance of being honest with children about the gravity of the illness, while assuring them that their basic needs will always be met. She encourages families to create a "new normal," in which cancer becomes a manageable part of daily life. She suggests concrete, creative ways for all family members to work together to achieve this equilibrium. Dr. Harpham also addresses the special needs of single parents, as well as teenagers and the well spouse, who are learning to cope with a loved one's illness. The paperback edition has an added chapter on raising children when a parent's cancer recurs or becomes chronic. Included is Becky and the Worry Cup, an illustrated children's book that tells the story of a seven-year-old girl's experiences with her mother’s cancer. This book touches on the fears, anger, guilt and uncertainty that children feel when their mother or father is sick. Dr. Harpham has given us two important and invaluable books. The are written with the honesty and clear-sightedness that can come only from lived experience. She offers comfort, encouragement, and reasonable hope at the exact moment you might fear none is to be found.  Most important, these books provide a plan of action for you and your children to live meaningfully and well when life is at its most uncertain.

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WHEN A PARENT HAS CANCER. A Guide to Caring For Your Children

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Important message to parents, friends, and extended family

Prologue - Our story

How to use Becky and the Worry Cup

Chapter 1. Meeting your children's fundamental needs

Chapter 2. Caring for your children through the crisis of a new diagnosis

Chapter 3. Caring for your children beyond the first few weeks

Chapter 4. Grief, fear, and children's other emotions

Chapter 5. Helping your children live with uncertainty and tame their fear of death

Chapter 6. Family members with special needs: teenagers, single parents, the well spouse

Chapter 7. Taking care of you

Chapter 8. Caring for the children when cancer recurs

Conclusion

Appendices

Index

 Praise for When a Parent Has Cancer

Among the hardest questions posed tome in helping patient and their families face cancer is "What do I tell my child?"  Wendy Harpham has answered those questions from her own experience.  Uniquely, however, she has taken the next step - to provide other parents with a guide that should help them to talk more comfortably with their children, and to find the words with which to discuss this subject that frightens just by its name alone.  Wendy has steadfastly examined her emotions and reactions with an honesty and sincerity that can only bring reassurance and hope to parents who are facing this crisis for the first time.

        Jimmie Holland, M.D., chief, Psychiatry Services, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

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For any parent with cancer, our children become the focal point of our greatest fear - dying before we raise them - and our greatest emotional turmoil as they try to grow up amid the exhaustion, pain, and joy of living with the 'elephant n the living room' - cancer.  Wendy Harpham has written the guidebook that will become every parent's answered prayer.

        Kathy LaTour, author of The Breast Cancer Companion

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A sensible and sensitive guide to helping children through cancer that threatens a parent's life.  Dr. Harpham is knowledgeable, clear and kind.  She gives advice that is useful and easy to understand.  The story written for children is a real bonus.

            David Spiegel, M.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine

To Order Copies of When a Parent has Cancer

Visit or call your local bookstore to buy Dr. Harpham's books.  If temporarily out of stock, most bookstores are happy to order copies for you.  When you support your local bookstore, you support your community. 

Also, you can order this book set from Amazon.com
To order directly from the publisher, call HarperCollins, 1-800-331-3761
Multiple copies:  HarperCollins  1-212-207-7528 (ask about discounts)