Children's Cancer Camps: A Way to Understand Grief Differently

• Published in: Omega: Journal of Death and Dying 2015-03, Vol.70 (4), p.436-453
• Main Authors: Laing, Catherine M., Moules, Nancy J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptation, Psychological; Adult; Camping - psychology; Camps; Cancer; Child; Childhood; Children; Exegesis & hermeneutics; Families & family life; Family - psychology; Family Relations; Female; Grief; Hermeneutics; Humans; Male; Medical philosophy; Neoplasms - psychology; Neoplasms - rehabilitation; Parent-Child Relations; Parents - psychology; Pediatrics; Social Support; Therapeutic Community
• ISSN: 0030-2228; 1541-3764
• DOI: 10.1177/0030222815572605

A philosophical hermeneutic study was conducted as part of the first author's doctoral research to understand the meaning of children's cancer camps for the child with cancer and the family. Twenty family members from six families were interviewed in order to bring understanding to this topic. This article will detail the finding related to the experience of grief that often accompanies a cancer diagnosis, and how camp seems to allow children and families to understand their grief differently. The interesting thing about this particular cancer camp is that families of children who have died continue to attend the camp yearly, and there are events to memorialize the many children known to all the campers who no longer attend camp. This is not a grief camp but a cancer camp where grief is allowed presence as it necessarily has to in the world of childhood cancer.