A notebook for the questions

The activity

A notebook of your child’s own for the questions about a parent’s illness that are hard to ask out loud. You look in it every evening and answer the next day.

What it is for. Children often have fears about a parent’s illness that they don’t mention, and some stop asking questions to protect the adults. A notebook of their own gives your child a way to ask without having to say it out loud, and gives you a night to think about the answer.

• The first step. Write the first page yourself, before you give the notebook to your child: that they can write or draw any question in it, about the illness or anything else, and that you will look every evening and answer the next day, in writing or face to face, whichever they prefer.
• When you give it to your child, tell them two more things. If something is frightening them, or they feel unsafe, they should tell you or another adult straight away, and not only write it down. And if something they write makes you worried about their safety, you will need to get help, and you will tell them what you are doing.

Safety. Keep the notebook away from brothers, sisters and visitors unless your child wants to share it, but never promise that what is in it will stay secret: if it is about your child’s safety, or anyone else’s, act on it that day. Keep medical details your child hasn’t asked about out of your answers.

When to get help. If your child’s low mood has lasted most days for two weeks or more, if worry or problems with eating, sleeping or school do not settle, or if you are worried about how they are, talk to their GP and their school. A child may write or say that they want to go with their parent, or to die too. Treat it as talk of not wanting to be alive, even if you are not sure what your child meant. If your child has hurt themselves, or talks about not wanting to be alive, stay calm, thank them if they have told you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day: help them ask the surgery for an urgent appointment, and if it is closed, use the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page. If your child tells you that someone is hurting them, stay calm, thank them for telling you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day, using those routes; if the person hurting your child lives in your home or your child’s other home, go straight to children’s social care or the police. A child protection helpline, listed under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page, will talk it through with you. If your child is badly hurt, or may have taken too much of a medicine, get medical help straight away, even if they seem well.

The other three steps, and your part in it, are in the library.

It goes with

• When a Parent Is Seriously Ill. For parents whose own serious illness, or the other parent’s, has changed life at home.
• When You Are Not All Right. For parents whose own mental health is part of what’s going on at home.

Free on this subject

• Serious illness in the family. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.
• Difficult conversations. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.