Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy DD6 Near-Obsessive Interest in Cancer

My DD6 tends to become intensely interested in certain subjects. Now, it's cancer. She questions me over and over and over about cancer. She frequently starts crying as she questions me or starts discussions about cancer.

I've tried explaining that, first, many cancers are treatable, especially in children, and have alarming symptoms that indicate medical attention is needed. Second, I've tried explaining that many cancers are caused by environmental toxins like smoking or toxic-waste. I explained that her particular risk should be quite low because we're not around smokers and I carefully checked environmental quality in our move. Third, I've tried to explain that she can do many things to lessen her risk of cancer, such as eating lots of fruits and vegetables and other healthy foods and using sunscreen. None of this seems to lessen her anxiety.

She wants to study cancer. We home school, and I tend to let my children pursue their interests, though I wouldn't otherwise be having her study cancer. I was thinking of focusing on cell biology and trying to direct her more towards cellular biology and how cancer basically is cells growing out of control. I also was thinking of focusing on how certain toxins, like cigarette smoke or toxic waste, result in cancers.

Any suggestions? I would love to hear how other people have handled their little one's interest in such topics. How have you dealt with the anxiety? Any suggestions on how to approach the study of cancer? My hope is focusing on the cellular action and big, obvious causes, like smoking and toxic waste, will help lessen her anxiety while still satisfying her interest.

Thank you!

When my son was 4 two important people we knew died of cancer. I used the 'folktale' approach to help him put it in context. It sounds like this may be way too simplistic for your DD, but I wonder if what she is looking for isn't a way to put this big scary topic into context.

Emotionally she is still 6 and may crave for an orderly universe that makes sense.

Here's my best shot:

All cells have ways to communicate with their neighbor-cells. This communication helps them be good team players. It tells them when to grow and when to wait, and how much the rest of the body needs their help in making whatever it makes to help the rest of the body. It's like how you have a little voice inside you that tells you how to act at school, when to ask a questions and when to wait to give someone else a chance. When to go first on the slide and when to let someone else go first. Everything that works in groups has to have ways to know how to work together. Cancer cells started as regular cells in your body, but their little voices, and their ears to hear communication from other cells got broken. This happens almost every day, and we don't have cancer because we have cells who have to job to look for these broken cells that grow too much and don't notice how they fit with the whole body. But once in a very very rare time, the cells who check make a mistake and the cancer cells get to big to be handled by your own body, so we get doctors to help take away these sad cells.


We also had discussions about evolution and the beauty of having DNA that is susceptible to change. The bad side is Cancer, but the good side is Evolution. I think I took the idea from Asimov's Foundation, of G-D reaching into the future and asking a representative Human 'do you want extra stable DNA that almost never breaks down and for evolution to take 1000 times longer than it did? or do you want it the way it is?' For all we know, the sun doesn't have enough fuel for humans to evolve quickly enough with super-stable DNA.

I hate losing people to Cancer, but I like the idea that flexibility is an important part of what makes humans human. It comforts me to think at least sometimes, things are the way they are because they have to be that way.

Also - look around at the rest of her life and try to reduce the stress in other areas if possible. Extra sensitive kids may not be able to comfortably handle what other kids her age handle, so be ready to think outside the box. Try to get a lot of physical contact, even playful wrestling in on a daily basis. It also helped my son to know that there were legal papers in place for who would take care of him should he be without DH and me. For a while I was strongly considering appointing an unofficial 'Educational Gaurdian' to help the official ones on matters related to giftedness and learning.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

My son became very interested in medical things, especially neuroscience and neuroplasticity after his grandmother suffered severe memory loss after a routine surgery, and then cancer treatment and prevention about six months later when he was just five and in kindergarten and his dad was diagnosed with cancer.

In dealing with close relatives with serious medical issues he learned that even though he was just a little kid that he could do something because laughter was the best medicine so he made us laugh when things were very difficult.

We talked about carcinogens. His dad had been exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam which is a known carcinogen. Looking at lists of carcinogens caused more anxiety so we read about the immune system and antioxidants. This seemed to help him when he learned that he could limit his exposure to known carcinogens and make sure he ate a healthy diet. It is the feeling of not having any control at all over a situation that causes my son anxiety.

My son, now 14, also tells me that watching shows like Mystery Diagnosis causes him to have some anxiety and he wishes I would stop watching it.

Thank you so much, Grinity, for your extremely well-thought through and informative reply. I definitely will try explaining cancer to her in those terms.

I find it difficult to navigate the disparity between emotional/social development and intellectual level.

Much thanks!

Thank you, Lori. I'm so sorry to hear about the medical difficulties of your husband and your son's grandmother. I like the idea of focuing on the locus of control. I'm hoping focusing on obvious carcinogens that she, in turn, can avoid will help.

Thanks!

I recently read "The Emporor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer". I would not consider it appropriate for a six year old, BUT it is a tremendous source of information on historical progress on cancer treatment, how our understanding of cancer has evolved, and the current state of cancer treatment. As you are home schooling, you might find this a very valuable resource to read for information purposes. It was the best book I have read in years. You could definitely find some springboard areas in the book (cell biology and DNA/RNA/etc, how medications work against cancer, etc.) for science study with her, too.

I know this doesn't address her anxiety level, but being sure that the information you are providing is correct is best.

Have any of your friends or relatives that your dd is close to dealt with cancer? I'm just curious if her anxiety over cancer is due to knowledge or partly due to not being able to control what is happening with a loved one? Second question, is she an anxious child in general or is this anxiety something new and completely fueled simply by learning about cancer?

If it was me, I'd probably try to calm her anxieties but also redirect so that her attention can be focused on something less stressful to her for awhile. Re cancer specifically, I might also look for some examples of people for her to learn about - cancer researchers who've made strides in understanding cancer - so she can see that in spite of how overwhelming it is, we've made tremendous progress in understanding it and finding new ways to treat it over the past 50 years. Then maybe move on into other types of medical research/advances or advances in other types of technology or anything that gently leads away from hyper-focusing on cancer.

polarbear

I forgot to mention that my son started reading things like sciencedaily.com which often includes information about medical breakthroughs and research. That also made my son a little less anxious.

Thank you for all the replies. They are helpful and appreciated.

I'm baffled about how she developed this interest in cancer. We've had no personal experience with cancer in recent years. I'm unaware of any shows she has watched about cancer. I know her interest in polio developed from seeing an iron lung in a museum.

She does tend to be a little anxious. She has severe food allergies, and the reality of her life, is anxiety-provoking. Her life requires constant vigilance, and we live with the knowledge that mistakes, regardless of how innocent or well-intended, risk serious consequences.

These replies have been quite helpful to me in realizing that we probably need to have a moratorium on medical-related shows in our house. I'm realizing that I'm seeing a pattern of her getting anxious about medical-related issues, and some of these have been sparked by TV shows, though I don't know if a show is behind the cancer interest.

I like the idea of trying to segue her interest away from cancer towards something like medical research, which hopefully also will help reassure her. She had an allergist she was extremely fond of who also did a lot of medical research.

I appreciate the book recommendation. I cannot begin to answer all her questions, and a background on the medical advances may help me steer her toward medical research as an interest. I did tell her that the reason we are applying to Davidson is because they help kids develop their talents so that they can do things like discover cures for cancer. (We submitted applications and are awaiting a response.)

Thank you so much again for these helpful responses.

I tend to obsess about things that worry me as well - pretty sure it's a gifted thing. I don't know what this looks like in a six year old, so take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt.

I find that if I immerse myself in whatever is bothering me and find out as much information as I can, it tends to soothe my fears. My current fixation is airplanes (terrified of them). The other day my husband commented "this is what you're obsessed about now?" LOL yup.

For me the bottom line is facts are far less scary than what my vivid imagination can conjur up. If I face my fears directly and immerse myself in them, they have far less power over me. (This may be the case with your daughter as well?)

I love the idea of exploring medical research - this could be very empowering for your daughter. Maybe you can also teach her about the power of the human immune system and all of its defenses against cancer. Being an anxiety ridden, obsessive person myself, I'm not sure you'll be able to get her attention completely away from cancer (but who knows - it's worth a try).

If you can't distract her from it, you can sift through cancer stats (yourself first) and share with her only the empowering ones. For example, there are over 100 different kinds of cancer, and none of them have 100% mortality rate: This means that EVERY single type of cancer has survivors. (I myself had cancer 13 years ago - it was cured and has never come back ) Some cancers have a lower mortality rate than common conditions such as Asthma. Some people live for 30-40 years with low grade cancer that never kills them (like a friend of mine)... it just becomes a chronic condition that needs monitoring and occassional intervention (like the periodic removal of slow growing tumors). I swear, having cancer was one of the best things that ever happened to me because I'm no longer afraid of it.

(I don't mean to take away from the suffering of those who have lost loved ones to the aggressive forms of cancer - it can be devastating - it's just that there are other, less terrifying sides to cancer that you can talk to your daughter about).

Good luck - I hope she makes it in to Davidson