As the mother of two very curious young children, I often find myself in the difficult position of answering my now 4-year old son's questions about death, heaven, the cemetery up the road, etc. It's been a real struggle for me. I want to be, most importantly, honest with him, but I don't want to scare his literal mind either. For instance, when he first asked me what the cemetery was, I was hesitant to tell a 3-year old that people get buried in the ground. At the same time, it's also quite easy to fall into the trap of underestimating children's intelligence.
I feel that I've slowly been learning that it's okay to not have an answer either. I don't really know what heaven is like or where it actually is. How do you explain what a soul or a spirit is to a child? About a week after not really being able to explain some of these things to my son, my husband got a GREAT laugh when my son informed him that "mommy really doesn't know very much." I have to admit that I laughed too. Okay, we both laughed really hard.
I try to remember back to when I was 4 and lost my mother to breast cancer. I'm told that while I was at my Grandmother's house with my Great Aunt Kate, while the rest of the family was at the funeral, that I told my Great Aunt Kate that my mommy went to heaven on a couch on wheels. I'm guessing that this came from the fact that she was laying on the couch resting at home 90% of the time, and that I saw her in the hospital on a bed on wheels. My little mind put all of these elements together and sent her to heaven. It was the resolution that I was able to come up with to comfort myself.
Often a child's first experience with death is when a pet dies. So how we help them handle that and memorialize the pet becomes really, really important. Here are a few tips to help you through this.
1. Be honest. It isn't necessarily easy, but it is more helpful to the child in the long run.
2. Take a piece of paper and fold it in half. On one side of the paper, draw a picture of your family before you lost your pet. On the other side of the paper, draw a picture of your family after you lost your pet. It's helpful to share your picture with someone who will understand. Ask them to just listen as you and your child explain it to them.
3. It really helps to talk about feelings, instead of bottling it all up inside. Have someone who loves your child (a grandparent, sibling or friend) ask them the following questions:
a. My favorite thing to do with my pet was . . .
b. The naughtiest thing that my pet ever did was . . .
c. The funniest that my pet ever did was . . .
d. What I miss most about my pet is . . . .
e. If I could talk to my pet, I would tell them . . .
4. Attempt to explain that the spirit or soul of their pet will always be with them. This can be very comforting to a child. They might not quite understand what that means right away, but they will think about it and try to make sense of it.
Talking about their feelings is the best way to help children to work through their grief. It is important to keep gently opening the lines of communication with them, to continue try to keep them talking. In addition, there are other very effective ways of helping children to express their feelings - through art, music, dance and simply playing.
It is very important for children to be supported in adapting to their loss. Sometimes it's appropriate to focus on getting a new cat, dog, rabbit or horse right away, and sometimes it's better to wait. Have a conversation with your child to see what they would like to do. It should be a family decision with everyone's input.
Always be honest regarding the death of a pet. You do not have to discuss all the details, but the child needs to understand what's going on. A child will find out the truth in the end and may become less trusting of the parent or feel betrayed if not told the truth. The child should be able to participate in the arrangements. If your pet is to be buried, the child should be given the option to be there. Burying your pet without the child's knowledge can, again, make the entire grieving process more difficult, and make the child less trusting at a time when he really needs them.
If at all possible, prepare the child ahead of time for the death. Mementos can be very important for children, and they may want some pictures with their pet, a plaster cast of your pet's foot, etc.
Creating some kind of ritual will be very helpful, and not just to your kids. Rituals are vital to human beings. We create them around everything in our lives - births, weddings, graduations, and certainly around death. Surely, in the case of a death, ritual creates the support that the living need to grieve and say good-bye - this becomes even more important with kids. Kids don't have that button inside that says with pets we're "supposed" to be okay when they die. They just know that their pet is their friend, and part of the family - and the space they leave is palpable.
Creating loving rituals and memorials (as found on http://www.Peternity.com) to mark the death of a family pet can make all the difference in the grieving process, and it can be a tool that the child takes with them and uses to help process loss and grief their entire lives.
Colleen Mihelich
Owner, Peternity . . . honoring your pet for eternity
http://www.peternity.com
colleen@peternity.com
877-PET-PEACE
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