What do you tell children?

[anniemay 150]

I have a five and six year old. I am not sure how much I should tell them. The oldest spent 90 days in the hospital a year ago and had major surgery. He's fine now but it left an impression on him.

I don't want to scare them but I also don't want to reveal all the details - especially because I am only sharing this information with those closest to me.

Anyone else have to do deal with a similar situation?

[DrmBig4Evr 152]

Well my children are older now 11 & 18 so I told them about it. My 11 year old had a nightmare two weeks before my surgery about me dying and it was so real he woke up crying so I opted not to tell him when it was scheduled. He was ok with it when he picked me up from the hospital. Now when I had back surgery he was 5 and it was very traumatic for him. So much so he drew pictures at school of me lying down and blood coming out of me. He is sooo scared of death and losing his mom. So my advice is to keep it quiet until after then have a talk with them about being gentle with you, but I would keep the procedure to yourself right now if you can.

[1happyloser2b 39]

Keep it simple! Tell them u are going to get a procedure that will help you "feel better" and that u won't be in the hospital as long as your oldest child was there. If they begin to question just keep it vague! Good luck to you!! God bless!

[Taradawn15 148]

I told my 5 and 8 year old that I was going to get healthier, luckily they where totally satisfied with that. However I spent way more time asking them what fun things they where going to do with daddy while I was away. I helped them make plans and look forward to there one on one time at home with there dad instead. A year before I spent 15 days in the hospital for an emergency surgey but because this was planned and they knew I would be away they where totally find.

[Crkrjax76 76]

I told my 6 year old. I told him that mommy was going to have a surgery to help her lose weight and then we could do all kinds of fun things together. He told me that he would be my big helper when I came home from the hospital. He wanted to know if he could have my cell phone so he could call me while I was in the hospital. My son is very observant and he found my folder of information and started questioning me. We have found that it's better to tell him what's going on or he just keeps hounding until he gets it.

[anniemay 150]

Thanks everyone! This is all really great advice

[KatInFL 216]

I have a five and six year old. I am not sure how much I should tell them. The oldest spent 90 days in the hospital a year ago and had major surgery. He's fine now but it left an impression on him.

I don't want to scare them but I also don't want to reveal all the details - especially because I am only sharing this information with those closest to me.

Anyone else have to do deal with a similar situation?

I'm in a similar situation. I have a 10 year old who watched me go through serious back surgery about three years ago. He has an anxiety disorder and I kept the details to a minimum then, but was in the hospital locally for a couple of days and came home with a walker. It was impactful in ways I wish could have been avoided.

Now, even though he has an amazing therapist and he's older and probably better equipped to handle details, I've opted to not tell him much. Sadly, he's used to my dieting and attempting to lose weight so I doubt that part of it will really register for a while. I'm not having surgery locally, so I've told him I have to go out of town to see a specialist. If I could have avoided that much, I would have...but being a single parent, I rarely leave him so it warranted some explanation. He seems to be satisfied with that, at this point, with no real questions.

Also, I adore my son but he is a little immature socially and doesn't really "get" the concept of private/personal information. If he knows information, he will share with anyone and everyone who he thinks might be interested. I don't want to make him responsible for keeping a secret that isn't really a secret but more personal, than anything else. So, unless I want him to write a report on the fact I had WLS (he did exactly that on another health related topic), it's best to just not share the info with him.

~Kat