Hello there Suty,

Sorry to hear about your breast cancer diagnosis.  It's a very difficult time isn't it.  You will find a lot of support in this forum.

My 3 children are much older and it was still absolutely heartbreaking finding the right time to tell them, so I completely understand how hard you are finding this.  Everyone advises complete honesty, and I agree, but everyone is different and only you will know how your children will cope with the news.  
I didn't tell my kids until I had all my test results confirmed.  I was tempted to tell them earlier when I was backwards and forwards to the breast clinic having biopsies, but didn't.  Once I knew everything and what I was dealing with I told them and kept it casual and chatty, no dramas (I think we were out walking the dog).

You can be totally honest without using the word cancer.  I couldn't bring myself to use the word even though mine are older, so explained 'my suspicious cells' that were being removed in an operation. and that I'd have to take medication afterwards.  I told them I'd feel tired for a while and wouldn't be able to do so much after the operation, but that the Drs were sorting me out and had told me I'd be okay a little while afterwards.  They were fine with it, and carried on with their day, no anxiety, so I felt I'd used the right approach for my lot.  They knew it was cancer but we got through the whole thing without using the 'C' word.  Maybe this may be a useful approach for you too, especially as yours may find the association frightening.  
 

The only other thing I did was tell my youngest's tutor in school so that he could go to her if he felt upset or anxious.  School were amazing and checked up on him from time to time.  He was fine.
 

The only thing my kids asked me was "are you protecting us and not telling us the full truth" and I responded that everything I had been told by the Drs and nurses I had told them, and that we all had to trust what they were saying.

Good luck and wishing you all the best.  I recovered very quickly from my mastectomy with very little pain, it's really not as bad as it sounds!

Mary

Thank you so much for replying   I told him last night that I was having an operation on my 'boob', but didn't use the cancer word as he's 9yrs old, he responded by asking me if I was only going to have one boob or be boobless??? Didn't even mention about mastectomy, very bizarre. I did email his teacher as well just to monitor him at school, didn't tell teacher about the cancer either just that I would be have lots of hospital visits and didn't people may need to pick him up and his routine may be a bit all over the place.  He seemed fine about it all, I'm sure he will have more questions as time goes on and he starts to process it.  Glad you had a quick recovery from your operation, I'm hoping to get to boot camp as quickly as possible

There is no right or wrong answer as you know your kid/s better than anyone else.

We have a daughter at 14 and were told to be honest with her. Not to overplay stuff, because if something doesn't pan out as you expect it to, they will think you aren't being truthful or broke a promise. Which in turn can make them go into themselves, and less likely to open up to you if they begin to struggle themselves.

But yeah, our daughter is older than yours, so again, what was right for us, may not be right for you. But we did get told kids tend to cope a lot better if they're fed the truth, as the doctors tell you it. Not every single detail, but the general gist of what was said, the aims of the treatment, and that there may be ups and downs a long the way.

We worried about our daughter as she suffered terribly from anxiety before all this, but she has handled this fine. She feels in control and that she isn't being kept in the dark.

As for when we told her, we told her the day we got the formal diagnosis.

This is the hardest conversation but you will find the best way to do it for your own children and it is likely to go better than you think ️ Sharing my own experience my kids are teenagers but I was really worried as we have lost friends young to cancer 

I took a tip from one of those friends -

write a

script. This allows you to be on the same page and to share exactly what has been told / key messages with other relevant adults .

so they don't get slightly different info from different people. This will happen anyway but if you give the message that you're sharing the key messages people might think twice before saying something inappropriate. 
 

by writing a script my husband and I were able to think through - what shall we say if they ask this or what shall we say if they ask that? We wanted to be honest but also not to bamboozle them with unnecessary details eg they wouldn't understand about different receptors on breast cancer etc 

looked at some info from macmillan too on what to tell different age groups .i also spoke to my GP. She said be honest but don't look too far ahead. For example if it is xonsidered treatable now there's no need to jump in and talk about your own natura concerns about the future -

focus on it's treatable now. 

that allowed us to have the convo about what's appropriate and not appropriate to share 

we didn't really use the script and my husband shared some detail we hadn't agreed (inadvertently) but overal I think the conversation did go a lot better than if we hadn't had a script.z we then shared very clearly the 3 key messages we had told the kids with other close family adults. 
 

now it's just evolved and we are a bit lax and we probably need to revisit this so thanks for making me

think! 
 

Wishing you all the best . Sending hugs ️

Thank you, trying to keep it to a minimum to people who know at the moment to avoid slips in conversations! He's so observant, noticed bruises from biopsies etc! Only going to tell him stuff I know (which at the moment isn't a lot), but more conversations to be had as time goes on. Waiting for test results to see if I need chemo or straight mastectomy. Think that's when the questions will come, thanks for replying