Sharing books can help

Sometimes we adults can get so involved in our own problems that we forget how stress, illness, and personal problems can affect our kids. Recently I was looking at a chart from the American Cancer Society that tells how a parent's illness impacts the kids in the family. This chart gives a clear view of children's understanding of the illness at different ages, their possible responses, and how a parent could respond. One of the suggestions is to share books together to address children's concerns. Sometimes we need to talk with our children about difficult topics.

On the Children's Services website, we have a collection of booklists called Parents' Primer which include many lists of children's books that help explore sensitive issues. These booklists include a wide variety of topics such as divorce, cancer, learning disabilities and ADHD, foster families, and nightmares & fear of the dark which parents may want to talk about with their children. We encourage you to use these lists. If you need help finding these or any other books, talk with any of our Children's Librarians. We want to help!