Tips on discussing life-threatening conditions with youth. Recommendations for helping health care professionals talk with children and adolescents about life-threatening conditions are described in two papers, both published in the March 16 issue of the Lancet. The first focuses on communicating with children and adolescents about their own life-threatening condition, and the second covers how to communicate with them about such a condition in their parent. The authors note the lack of evidence-based guidelines for doing so and provide principles involved in communicating with children and adolescents, along with reviews of related literature and clinical examples.