How to Tell Young Children a Pet has Died

After a long, healthy life or after a long illness, your beloved pet has died. You need to share this information with your children and help them manage their grief. This is often a child's first experience with death, grief and loss, so compassion is key. Read on to learn how to tell young children a pet has died.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

1. Keep it simple. Young children don't have the developmental capacity to understand medical details or options. Simply tell the children that their pet has died.
2. Share with them where you think their pet is now. If your belief system allows, tell them that your pet is in heaven, or in the sky, chasing clouds, or that the pet's life has simply ended. Give them something comforting to think about other than the death itself.
3. Don't dwell on the details. If your pet was hit by a car or put down by your veterinarian, don't dwell on how it happened. Young children can be frightened by the process, so keep the focus on them and their feelings of grief rather than the mechanics of the death.
4. Don't tell them that their pet went to sleep. Sleeping is not a good euphemism for death--they'll never nap or sleep again.
5. Let them know it's OK to be sad. Young children may not know how to respond. And may often have been told not to cry. Guide them into their mourning process by letting them know that crying and sadness are totally normal things to do when a pet dies.

Tips & Warnings

• Expect that children will begin to mourn almost immediately, which can be difficult for you emotionally. But keep your emotions in check to avoid overwhelming your children with your own grief.