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551 sats \ 3 replies \ @hodlpleb 3 Feb \ on: Dealing with Dog Loss with a Little Kid Dogs_And_Cats
My opinion
You have to reinforce that the dog is not coming back. Do not give them some kind of hope that dog is on a trip, at a farm, etc
Let your kid say whatever they have to say, whenever they feel f compelled to do so
My kid was 3 when their aunts dog died. We had them say goodbye ahead of time. My kid then became mildly “obsessed” with death, talking about everyone dying, etc. I do not think the parent resisting this is good. You’ve got to let them process. It took a long while, but the death obsession did go away and now does not even remember that dog.
Thanks. That is what we ended up doing pretty quickly. First, we just emphasized that she was gone and not coming back, but we did tell her that our dog died after that.
I guess we were trying to thread a needle that really wasn't possible. We didn't want her to worry that if she got sick she was going to die like the dog, or that her grandparents are about to die because they're old like the dog.
I do think now that it just has to be dealt with head on.
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We recently had a smaller, non-dog/cat pet die suddenly. In the matter of a day it went from "something is odd here" to dead. It was really dramatic and was interesting to see our 8 year old immediately say "can we get another one???" , which I guess is a normal thing for kids to say.
We had them say goodbye while they still could, then we did a funeral a few days later. The 8 year old went out to visit the grave the next day, but now it's been months and nobody has said much about it.
If you haven't done some kind of ceremony, it might help bring some closure for the kids, and you.
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some kind of ceremony
In hindsight, I think this is where we messed up. At the time it really was unclear how our daughter would process the death. If it were happening now, there's no question that we would have let her be more involved.
That said, I don't think she's struggling with closure. She just wants to look at pictures every so often and sometimes she says something that catches me off-guard emotionally.
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