4 Steps to Helping Your Child Cope With Chronic Illness

Chronic illnesses are scary matter for adults, and needless to mention children. When your child learns they have a disease and begins a new life with it, anxiety and hard times can occur. Take these four recommendations on how to help your child cope with their chronic illness.

1. A Strong Foundation:

A child’s main need is love. The most important thing for any young person, especially those with an illness is to feel loved and supported. Don’t just tell them how much you care, but show your child through your actions. Listen to their fears and concerns and be there when they need you. With the strength of love from their parents, your child will have a strong foundation that will not topple when the rest of their tower comes crumbling down.

2. Happy Attitude:

We have all heard the phrase “Monkey see, monkey do.” Being a parent, you are your child’s role model and example. How you react to situations will be the key teacher to your child on how they should react to situations. Illnesses, especially chronic ones can be very trying, but turn out to be much easier when you’re smiling. It may be difficult, but responding to situations relating to their illness and even just in general in a positive and optimistic way will affect your child more than you know.

3. A Good Balance:

When their child is diagnosed with a chronic illness, many parents can easily become overprotective in parenting their child and keeping vital information from them because it’s potentially “scary.” Other parents become overly permissive, letting their child do what they please and not being careful about their sick child’s emotional stability. Finding a balance between the two seems overwhelming but is really pretty simple. Treat your sick child the same way you’d treat them if they weren’t sick. The only difference should be to respect the boundaries of the illness and follow the doctor’s instructions.

4. Be Their Friend:

A lot of chronic illnesses can reduce the amount of social contact your child would normally experience on a day-to-day basis. Your first job to your kid is to be their parent, however your second is to be their friend. Enjoy time with your child and show interest in their hobbies and passions. Have fun, play games and let loose a little. This will show your ill child that life is still wonderful and fun and happy.

Another way you can support seriously ill children is to donate your used car to a family oriented charity such as the Kiwanis Family House.The process of giving away your vehicle is made simple with DonateaCar’s easy on line process. Discover the difference you can make in the life of a suffering child in Sacramento, California.