The dying child

Abstract

The present study supports the finding that, despite the efforts to shield children with fatal illness, the anxieties of adults are conveyed to them. If, as the parents of 25 leukemic children maintained, their child did not know of the seriousness of his illness, there should have been no difference between the scores of the fatally ill children and those of the matched chronically ill children. Yet, the fatally ill children showed a greater overall anxiety, greater preoccupation with threat to their body integrity and functioning, and a growing disillusionment with the adults in their lives. It seems that the anxieties of those around him are conveyed to the fatally ill 6 to 10 yr old child.