Pet Loss Counseling for Kids: Identifying Emotions

Video Transcript

"When children are grieving, it's very important to help them to be able to identify, label the various emotions that they're going to be feeling. I think that it's perfectly okay if they see a parent or a caretaker crying because essentially that's giving them a healthy role model for grief. It's letting them know that it's okay to cry when you feel sad. One of the things that I've used with my children and you can see they've gotten a lot of use out of this chart. It's basically an emotion chart and it shows all kinds of different feelings and it has little facial drawings that describe what the feelings look like and sometimes I will have them point to what feeling they're having. This is really helping kids to be able to learn to identify their emotions and to be able to learn healthy ways to handle that emotion, to express it and to help themselves through it or get support. So, you may not have one of these charts in your home, but the other thing that you can is to have children draw how they feel. As you can see here, I asked the kids how they felt when our dog Brutus died and they both drew faces that, what feeling are in these faces Bailey? Sad. Sad. What about yours Autumn? Disappointed. Disappointed. So, it's also important to let them know that they also may feel all kinds of other feelings other than sadness or disappointment such as anger, such as loneliness. Again, validating their feelings, helping them to put words to their feelings, providing them with physical comfort is all a very important part of helping children through this grieving process. Again, it is okay for them to see you crying yourself. If you're feeling like you're having a difficult time with your own emotions regarding the loss of your pet then it might be important for you to get the help that you need so that you can best be there for them as well."