Why do children need help when their parent or other adult loved one is seriously ill?

The National Cancer Institute estimates that nearly 25 percent of the 1.4 million adults diagnosed with cancer this year will have a child age 18 or younger. These are children who watch their mommy lose her hair, who wonder why their daddy is too tired to play, and whose most common worries are 'What did I do to cause this?' 'Can I catch cancer?' and 'What will happen to me?' Unfortunately, this population remains greatly underserved. Little has been done to help children and their families survive the challenges raised when a parent has cancer.

Research shows that a parent's serious illness can profoundly impact their children, and that stress within families is even higher prior to a parent's death than following death. A 2006 study found that 29 percent of children of cancer patients experience symptoms of post traumatic stress (PTS) syndrome in the first year of the illness, with an additional group experiencing increased PTS symptoms as time wears on and they have more time to 'fret' about the parent's disease.

Additional research indicates that psychosocial support and illness education provided to children at an age-appropriate level significantly helps children, eases stress within the family, improves parent's depressed mood, and increases the parent's ability to focus on treatment and well-being.

For seven years, Wonders & Worries has helped children and families cope when a parent faces a chronic or serious illness. Unbelievably, there is no other organization ANYWHERE offering these families timely, FREE professional support in individual as well as group settings.

A recent independent evaluation focused on collecting and analyzing parents' perceptions of how they and their children had changed after receiving the services of Wonders & Worries. The report found that:

• Wonders & Worries has a pervasive and positive impact on children whose parents are experiencing a life-threatening illness.
   
• W&W has a pervasive positive impact in many areas including 97% of the parents reporting improvements or no degradation in their children's level of security at home. The perception by only 3% of parents that their children seemed less secure in homes with such high levels of serious illnesses, including several families in which a familial death had occurred, is a notable and very positive result.
   
• In addition to helping children cope with anxiety, stress and negative behaviors ' such as sleeping problems, relationships and difficulty concentrating at school ' Wonders & Worries services may benefit children by preventing such troubles.