We were told 4 days ago that our dad's cancer is now untreatable after spreading to his liver and that he probably has weeks to live, my niece is sitting her gcse's so my question is do we tell her?
Hi and welcome to the online community the one club no one wants to join but your circumstances have brought you us to reach out and ask your question.
Your 15 year old niece will soon pickup on the fact your dad is ill and may start to ask questions whether you like them or not and at this stage you have to decide how you tell her what's going on and be very honest with her, if she asks questions and she will, you or her parents should be prepared to go into as much detail as she wants. My thoughts initially are if you don't tell her about grandad and he dies how will she react to the fact she has been kept in the dark and not given the opportunity to be with grandad in his last week's, a 15 year old will consider herself to be all grown up and should be kept upto date with family affairs plus if you decided not to tell her how will you disguise your own emotions and feelings about the impending passing of your dad, tell take signs will be picked up very quickly and questions will start to be asked.
Telling your niece could affect her schoolwork and her exams and it is imperative that her school is informed as soon as she has been told so they keep a watchful eye on her, it could be that school may have access to a child counsellor who could be of help to her.
I afraid there is no easy answer to your question as only you and your family know your niece, her temperament and how old she is for her age many factors need to be considered as a family unit and if you decide to tell her are you prepared to honestly answer her questions which should be phrased in a way she will understand but the other scenario can also affect her and she may end up resenting everyone for keeping her in the dark
If it is of any help to you we can have a telephone support line that you can talk to about this and they maybe able to direct your call to one of the specialist teams who you can talk this through with them you can contact the very friendly team 7 days a week between 8 am and 8 pm but some of the advisers are only available after 9 am Monday to Friday and you need to know the number which is 0808 808 0000.
If we can be of any help in any other way please come back as we maybe able to direct you to some of our specific groups that you could join
