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In the prologue to Giving Hope, Elena Lister shares the loss of her child from leukemia and the value she found in “having conversations in order to address fears and process emotions to get through the pain to the other side” (p. 5). She deeply understands grief and loss from the inside. The entire book offers clear, wise advice to parents on initiating and navigating difficult conversations with children about illness and death. Lister, an adult, adolescent, and child psychiatrist, and Michael Schwartzman, a psychologist and psychoanalyst, stress that none of these are single conversations, but conversations that will take place, again and again, over days, weeks, and years to come. With compassion they share the common pitfalls all parents experience when broaching difficult subjects with children. They point out that while they use the word “parent” throughout, this book is for any adult helping a child through loss.
Though much of what Lister, Schwartzman, and Tate offer in this book will be intuitively understood and appreciated by clinicians, it is useful to have problem-solving approaches, accessible real-life stories, and role-playing dialogue collected in one volume. Each chapter offers summative side boxes, or “takeaways,” emphasizing important themes
and valuable resources for parents and subchapters on specific losses, such as death of a parent or sibling. Additionally, there are chapters that tackle especially difficult topics, such as the complicated impact of suicide on children and exposure to death in the media. While each of these losses is distinct and significant, there is redundancy in some of the information and ideas offered.
Here I will review and highlight some of Lister, Schwartzman, and Tate's key take-aways for talking with kids about death and terminal illness, all underscored by the principle that children want to hear the truth. Often parents will instinctively protect their children from sorrowful experiences, failing to recognize t