Although I'm new to dealing with ALS, as my mom was only diagnosed less than a week ago.. I am familiar with death (and/or the news of a fatal illness), and how children cope.
I lost my father when I was eight years old, and from my own personal experience I can say that seeing my mother cry wasn't as devastating as you'd probably assume. Although everyone handles grief differently, and different situations, I can only speak from my own personal experience.
It was important for me to be strong for my mom, so in turn she had to be very sure to teach me that crying is important, and that I was allowed to grieve as much as I needed. I don't know the age of your children, but at eight years old I was somewhat able to understand the concept. My father was in and out of the hospital for quite a while before his passing, and because my family made it as happy as possible, we were all able to get through it a little easier. We all did our best to cry with each other, and most importantly to laugh. It is VERY important that you do not shield your children completely from this. They need to learn the importance of this situation, and unfortunately they will need to learn about death as well. It will be extremely important for how they cope with grief in the future.
I suggest doing a lot of your own research on this matter, as the way this is handled with your children will affect how they handle situations of severity in their own adult lives.
I don't mean to scare you during a time where you are already very worried and frightened, but from my own personal experience I do feel the need to express to you the importance of how you handle your children during this very tough time.
Let them see you grieve, but don't let them see you fall to pieces. Crying in front of them is fine (and teaches them that crying is okay, and teaches them the importance of the situation at hand so that they can cope later as things progress instead of being taken aback later.) Explain to your children what is going on, do not attempt to pretend things are fine when they aren't. Do not trick your children into a false sense of security, but slowly teach them more about the situation. (IE: Don't be blunt, but do express it in as full of detail as they can understand for their age.)
Sorry if this didn't all make as much sense as I wanted it to, I hope that is somewhat of a help. Feel free to PM me if you'd like to know more in detail of how I handled the situation with my father, as I'm sure I may be able to explain certain behaviors of theirs that you may not understand at the moment.
I'm very sorry this is happening to you, and we all definitely know how you feel, and how difficult this is. You aren't alone in this.
