I have never sheltered my kids intentionally.  Some times they have just missed hearing of things.   They also live with us.  I hope that as they move away they will ask about their grandparents.  I do share with my nieces/nephews when we talk, that their grandfather is aging, and they would notice him as very different from how they remember him.   If he was in the hospital or diagnosed with a terminal illness, I would definitely tell them.

Pinga, I'm always told eventually.  The information is just delayed, and it is intentional.  Maybe being in a different city from the relatives when I lived with my parents, and now a different city from almost everyone adds to it.  When someone had a stroke it wasn't like I could pop over during visiting hours.

I'm sure that's it with X as well.  The parents don't want them worrying when they aren't even in the country.  I think it should be X's decision whether to cut the trip short or not though.

My parents protected me when I was a child, not so much after I grew up.  I share relevant information with my own adult children as i receive it.  When they were younger I answered any questions as best as I could.

My experiences with being protected throughout childhood were not helpful to me.  I knew nothing about cancer but got the impression that it was unacceptable to have it (why else would my parents whisper about it?).  I wasn't allowed to know what was happening with sick relatives (so I got imagination overload) neither was I allowed to attend any family funerals (so when I had to organise one as an adult I didn't know what it was all about).

I think I would be upset if my parents withheld information from me once I was adult.  If you don't know that grandpa is failing you are cheated of the opportunity to spend some time with him before he dies.  If you don't know that an aunt has cancer you are cheated of the chance to help in some way. 

Hi chemgal,

Nope.

We pick an appropriate time depending on the nature of the bad news.  Typically it will be at the dinner table where we can discuss it.

One of the benefits, I guess, of being clergy is there is no end of bad news funneling through the house and the kids have always asked how so and so is doing if I have been called out in the middle of the night.

Generally if I have to go out in the middle of the night it isn't to share good news.

Grace and peace to you.

John

WE should not totaly shelter our children from bad news at ANY age.  It should be shared in a way that is most age-appropriate.  ANd that means we need to be ready to answer follow-up questions (never endingly in the case of my 3rd child).

In teh case of adult children they are adults.  ANd so why would we shelter them from life?

It is my guess that most often when we choose not to share this sort of news/information we are doing it to save ourselves the hard conversation.  OR we may need to process it ourselves first (remembering that we all process difficult things in different ways--some quietly and internally, some by talking about it)

I think that even as children, people need to be part of the family and to know what is going on.  I don't shelter my kids or my grandkids.  That doesn't mean that I shove it in their face or tell them more than they need to know.

But the dog that we decided (various reasons) had to be put down, didn't 'go to live on a farm'. 

I tell them, "Mommy's sad because grampy had to go into the hospital."

or now "You probably noticed that my arm shakes a lot.  That's because I have a disease called Parkinsons.  Gradually it will get worse, but right now I can do almost everything I could before.  I just might be a little slower.  You can help by carrying my soup over to the table."

I also think kids (of all ages) need to know if the family is having financial difficulties, or if divorce might be a possibility.

I try my best to keep my son, on the other side of the world, in the loop, without burdening him with too much information.  But I think it would be terrible for him to come home and not know what to expect.  Knowing him, he would expect everything back homee to remain the same, including his parents remaining the same age as when he left.

I don't really think we do a service to kids by excluding them.   As others above mention, I've also endeavoured to deliver news in a timely, age appropriate manner.   

When my mom was diagnosed with cancer, she had a hard time telling me.  I'm not sure if she was being protective, unsure how to break the news, or whether she was herself struggling to get the words about herself to issue forth.   I recall having to ask her directly - mum - do you have cancer?   Once out, then we could talk about it.

Someone I know has been struggling with a major health crisis recently; she & her husband decided to withold info from their young adult child, who was away at university - preferring to talk face-to-face with her when she returned.   That was their way and I try to respect that.   There is that potential for the kid to learn of it elsewhere, as mentioned upthread - I've never been good at secrets.

I have had the question of should I tell siblings of an issue or challenge regarding a parent.  I always tell and try to put "wrappers" around it, ie, what is probability, risk, etc.

The drag is that sometimes I end up dealing with their anger (one), or their sadness (the other) while trying to manage the health challenge of my parent.

So, if you don't have energy to deal with someone else's response then I would understand , maybe, considering not sharing

I could certainly understand delaying information if it isn't urgent and it would "ruin" something, such as the exam example already cited.  I don't think it's actually that protective in the long run to shelter people from things, though.  If Jim and I had sheltered Rachel and not let her know that his cancer was progressing quickly, I suspect that his death would have been far more traumatic for her, and I also think she would have lost trust in me and others around her.  She might have thought everything was fine and then it all fell apart (which does happen sometimes, of course) which would have probably affected her trust in the world around her.  I think it was better that we gave her child sized bites of information when they were necessary.  From that perspective, having personally told my 5 year old that her father was dying, the idea of actually hiding things from adult children to protect them from it seems odd to me. 

I'm always told eventually, just the delay can be a little extreme.  If I had an interview in a week, I would be told after.  My sister and I often get news a different times, depending on what's going on, always with the reminder not to tell the other.

Mind you the same thing happens with good news, depending on what is happening.  Just before we were ready to start telling people that we were expecting our first child my sister had a miscarriage and needed an D&C.  And so we delayed telling her that we were "winning the race" for the first grandchild.  (To be fair, she is the one that first used the race imagery when she phoned to tell me about the miscarriage--so it was only fitting that I threw it back to her when I told her we were going to win)

They NEED to know some stuff: like the history of residential schools and the deliberate oppression of native Canadians because it is fundamental to growing up in Canada. They do NOT need exposure to detailed sensational reports of sex crimes and violence. 

I would put the death of a close relative or pet in the "need to know" basket. Death is real. It is universal. We all need to cope with it sanely and as comfortably as possible. The hurt is the separation, not the death. How do we close the gap: that is what takes some art and ritual and ingenuity. The gap is inescapable and kids, even little kids, will spot it. They also spot nonsense and evasive fabrication. Rather than denial, they need comapny and companionship through the "gap" pain, just like adults.

I thought of this thread yesterday at the cancer clinic where I had a short appointment. Due to childcare scheduling my son had to bring my 3 ( 4 in July) grandchild.

I was instructing him on behavior . I said he had to be quiet because there were so many sick people  sitting waiting.

He say very quietly and then in a respectfully  loud voice as he looked at a man sleeping ina recliner as he waited, said "Is he dead?"

There were many guffaffs. Cancer patients, I have found have a sense of humour.

Dead is not a word in my grandson,s vocabulary but they learn through osmosis at daycare and through sickness and through TV. It was very interesting after reading and following this thread.

My son is still embarrassed but I must admit, I was one of the guffaffers.

When my daughter was in the middle of chemo treatments, on a good day she was having lunch with a friend and her friend's two pre-school children.  Somewhere in the middle of the meal, the older of the two boys noticed her head covering and asked, "How come you wear that scarf around your head inside in the summer?"  So she explained that she had been sick and her hair fell out.  Surprised he asked in a loud voice that carried through the restaurant,  'YOU MEAN YOU'RE BALD'

His mother was properly mortified, but my daughter calmly explained that yes, she is bald, because of the medicine she is taking, but that her hair will grow back in.  She also offered to show him her bald head 'when we get back to the house'. 

LOL crazyheart!   Truly, I think in some ways it's so great to have kids around in a setting like that - they do ease a lot of tension with their openess and curiousity - and we all need to laugh!!