What Do You Tell Your Children When A Beloved Pet Dies?
Posted by MommyTo3RealKids on August 4th, 2009
Unfortunately, this morning our beloved cocker, Isabel, was hit by a car and died. I cried like a baby. I cried so hard because I knew that I would have to be the one to tell my children. I cried even harder as I thought of how devastating it would be to my 3 children, especially my 12 year old daughter.
As parents, we want so much to protect our children from the horrors of life. As we all come to know, that is impossible.
So, I had to decide very quickly just how to soften this terrible news.
How do you tell your children that their beloved pet has died?
I decided that telling all 3 children at once would be too traumatic. I wouldn’t be able to hold and console them all at the same time. Quite honestly, I would have been overwhelmed with all their pain at one time.
I told my middle child first. He was the first one to wake up. I was honest and said that Isabel had been hit by a car and had died. He broke down in huge sobs and I just held him and told him that I was so sorry.
After he was somewhat composed, I repeated the process with my youngest child. Once again, the room was filled with heart-wrenching sobs. At that point, my middle child was overcome with more tears after seeing his younger brother break down.
I definitely was not prepared for the next phase, telling my oldest child, my daughter.
Before I could tell her, there was a knock at the door. The neighbors had come and offered to bury Isabel. My daughter was still sleeping, so I decided to go show the neighbors where to dig.
I should have known better than to leave two informed children in the same house with one very unaware sleeping child.
As you can guess, the boys woke their sister and not-so-gently, gave her the horrible news.
I had to run back to the house to stop her from seeing Isabel lying on the ground.
She was crushed. As I’m consoling her and telling her how sorry I am that this has happened, I realize that there really wasn’t anyway I could make it easier. All I could do was tell her that I was sorry and hold her.
I think sometimes we just need to say we’re sorry. All of my children already knew that death was permanent. Nothing else really needed to be said. They just needed comfort and someone to hold them and be quiet. They needed to release their emotions in their own way without someone trying to make it all better.
I can’t protect them from everything but I can do what mother’s do best, love and comfort them.
**We love you Isabel and will miss you dearly.**
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Tags: children and death, children and pets, children death in the family, death of a pet, kids and pets, talking to children about death
