The Prince of Wales has discussed the challenges of answering difficult questions from his three children, Prince George, 12, Princess Charlotte, ten, and Prince Louis, seven, amid his wife Kate's cancer battle. The future King, 43, opened up to Brazilian TV show host, Luciano Huck, during his trip to Rio de Janeiro last week for the Earthshot Prize Awards.
The Princess underwent preventative chemotherapy in 2024 after being diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer, and revealed in January earlier this year that she was in remission from the disease.
"Every family has its own difficulties and its own challenges, and I think it's very individual as to how you deal with those problems," William spoke candidly. "We choose to communicate a lot more with our children, that has its good things and its bad things, sometimes you feel you're oversharing with the children when you probably shouldn't.
"But most of the time hiding stuff from them doesn't work, and so explaining to them how they feel, why that's happening, giving them other viewpoints as to why they might be feeling the way like they are, sometimes helps give them a bigger picture and they can relax more into it, rather than being really anxious about what you're hiding from them. There can be a lot more questions than answers. It's always a balancing act, every parent knows that, it's about how much do I say? There's no manual for being a parent, you've just got to go with it, it's A bit of instinct."
Just weeks before Kate revealed her diagnosis in a personal video message, William's father, the King, had also begun cancer treatment, which is still ongoing.
School run and screens
In the wide-ranging interview, William also spoke about the family's home life, revealing how they fit their royal engagements around the school run and their children's extracurricular activities saying: "Play dates, taxi driver, sports days, matches, playing in the garden when I can. School run most days, I mean Catherine and I share it, but she probably does the bulk of it."
And while he's previously spoken about the children not having mobile phones, he wants to approach technology with caution.
"It is really hard. Our children don't have phones," he explained. "When George moves onto secondary school, maybe he'll have one with limited access. We talk to him and explain why we don't think it's right. With full access, children end up seeing things on the internet that they shouldn't. But with restricted access, I think it's good for messaging."