Young people's perspectives on open communication between family members when a parent is dying

Abstract

A narrative approach was employed based on in-depth semistructured interviews with 10 young people (aged 13-21) living with a parent thought to be in the last year of life. Young people's attitudes toward open communication between family members were more ambivalent and ambiguous than previous research suggests. Parental attempts at open communication were sometimes overlooked by young people, indicating that there may be differences between knowledge given and young people's acknowledgment of sensitive information. Some young people valued open communication as a signifier of the close relationships between family members, while others wanted to exercise more control over what they knew, when, and how. Young people's accounts challenged the positioning of young people as passive recipients of information. Young people were active in shaping family communication in their everyday lives, and deliberative acts of speaking or remaining silent were one way in which young people exercised care for themselves and others. This study extends research on communication within families when a parent has a life-limiting illness and suggests that supporting young people's agency in determining how they receive information may be more beneficial than promoting open communication between family members.