Opvoeden van een kind met kanker. Opvoedingsgedrag van ouders vanuit een gedragstherapeutisch perspectief bezien

Abstract

Children with cancer have a risk of developing emotional and behavioral problems. The task parents are faced with is to prevent and to reduce the emotional side effects of disease and treatment. Rearing a child with a serious, chronic disease as childhood cancer makes extra demands on parenting skills. In addition the parents' own emotional reaction to the life-threatening nature of the disease will influence their attitude of parenting. In this paper the issues of parenting a child with cancer is described from a conceptual framework of behavior therapy. It explains the natural reaction of parents to overindulge and overprotect their child by outlining the short-term direct positive effects of this behavior for the child as well as for its parent. However, this way of parenting may have negative consequences for the child's development in the long run, because parents may shape undesirable and immature behavior in their child. From the analyses of parenting behavior a number of cognitive behavioral interventions are described to change the way parents rear their child and which can be successfully applied in clinical practice.