Be honest with them imo.  Like, what you get told by the doctors, tell them if they want to know. If kids feel like you're withholding stuff, that's when the worry takes hold and they can go into themselves.  If they feel you're being up front with them, they tend to be fine as they feel more in control.  The 5 and 3 year old, I'm not sure how you go explaining the truth to them.  But the older ones, yeah, be truthful.

Don't go making wild promises.  For example, if you or the doctors don't know how the treatment is gonna pan out or whatever else, don't go telling them everything will go without a hiccup. Again, we were told if we paint a rosy picture and she has awful days, they'll notice and will no longer feel confident in what you are telling them.

A horrid part of it too, my wife initially came home and said hers was 100% nailed on to be cured. No one said that to her, but she told our daughter that. Her cancer is very likely to be blasted with the treatment, but on the 5% chance it isn't, we'd be left with one very angry daughter.  Probably blaming her mum, myself and herself should things not go as planned. So I spoke to my wife and asked her if she would rephrase that the next day.

All in all, she seems relaxed about it. We still hear her laughing a lot with her friends. She had her cry with us on the day and the week after, but that's all past now as far as the daughter is concerned.  All this was said to us by a McMillan nurse, cancer nurse and the oncologist.

Thank you. We are certainly going to honest with the older 2.  I had planned on getting pictures of the mammogram and ultrasound to show them where they lumps are and what they look like. 

The 5 year old is quite switched on so I think we'll need to tell her on a need to know basis. 

But I'm glad they'll have the support from school. 

As someone who heard their dad say he had cancer and died 5 week later do not leave it any longer tell them ASAP they need to know my dads didn't know he has cancer but had 3 month estimate to live and died in weeks your case is different but I didn't have time to even acknowledge what was happening and get used to the idea it put me in denial and I didn't even go see him straight away as I didn't want pressure on him and to make him look like an invalid lots of emotions went round I started saying if he's going to die I will remember him being well and when I did see him I still didn't believe it they need to gather their emotions and come to terms with it you need to think about writing a will which my father never had leaving me in a awkward position your case is different but please don't wait because you also need support from them but it's hard to support someone when you are coming to terms with something I had no time to do anything also I have young children one age 5 it's perfectly ok to tell her/him what's happening though they might not really understand just say your very poorly you went to the doctor for a X-ray which showed you have an illness called cancer you don't know if the cancer will go or not yet but it may make be very poorly .they will know what you mean I had to explain to my kids my dad dying because they was close and I just said he was very poorly