Being a parent while being sick is one of the hardest challenges parents can face.

If you’ve been there, and I know many of you have been, you know how difficult this is. The diagnosis comes back. The tumor is malignant. It’s cancer. You have a five-year-old or a ten-year-old or a 13-year-old. What do you do? What do you tell your kids? How do you explain to them a life-threatening illness?

I recently sat down and interviewed my friend Cheryl Wilkinson. Cheryl is a breast cancer survivor and mother of three. She has wonderful insight into how to parent through cancer. She’s honest and real, and even talks about what she did when her kids asked that scary question, “Are you going to die?”

From my experience in the medical field and from my experience as a mother, here’s what I’ve learned about talking to your kids about cancer and illness:

1. Be honest with your kids.

Kids are very intuitive. They know when something is wrong. Don’t hide your diagnosis from them. Be honest and transparent. Your kid wants to know how you’re feeling. Tell him. Don’t keep him the dark or in the unknown. That could make him…