While your child is hospitalized, it helps to stay connected with the teacher and classmates. Parents can help by calling the teacher periodically and sending notes or taped messages from the sick child to classmates. Following are some suggestions for keeping the teacher and classmates involved with your child’s life:

•  Give the teacher a copy of the book Educating the Child with Cancer (listed in Appendix C, Books, Websites, and Support Groups).

•  Have the hospital’s school liaison give a presentation to your child’s class about what is happening and how their classmate may look and feel when he returns to school. This talk should include a question and answer session to clear up misconceptions and alleviate fears. All children, especially teenagers, should be involved in deciding what information will be discussed with classmates and whether or not the child/teen wants to be present.

•  Encourage your child’s classmates to keep in touch. The class can make a card or banner or send a group photo. Individual students can call on the phone or send notes, emails, text messages, or pictures.

•  Allow children who are old enough to establish a page on a social network to communicate with friends, express feelings and thoughts, post photos, and remain connected.

•  If possible, use Skype^®, FaceTime^®, or a similar webcam software application to allow your child to interact “face-to-face” with classmates using a laptop, tablet, or smartphone. Use of this technology provides an opportunity for classmates to see changes in appearance as they gradually occur during treatment. This may lessen the surprise about changes in appearance when your child returns to school.