The loss of a beloved pet is an important landmark in one's life, and even more so to children just learning the meaning of the finality and meaning of death. Memoralizing your pet can be a healing and menaingful activity to bring about closure.
A child's understanding of death will depend on his or her age.
0 to 3 years - No comprehension of death.
3 to 5 years - Unable to understand finality of death.
5 - 9 years - Begins to undersand death is final, but not always that it is inevitable for everyone.
9 years & above - Understands death is final & inevitable for everyone.
A discussion about death prior to viewing will help your child to understand the event. Be completely honest. When explaning death, speak in tangible terms instead of philisophical ones. Give your children permission to cry and to express their feelings. If you do not know the answer to a question they ask, be honest about that too.
Children need stability and therefore, families should not make up stories or fairy-tales about death. Never share with a child something you do not believe yourself or something they will have to discard later. We should also never tell them their pet is in heaven, that death is like sleep, or that death happened because the pet was sick. This last part in particular can scare children into fearing death from any illness, which is why it is not recommended.
Burying a pet in your own backyard is one of the most reasonable solutions. The truth is that most suburban backyards already have family pet burial sites. Your backyard is easily accessible, tangible, and approachable to children. It is where they develop an emotional connection with the world and wild critters around them. Home burials also engage the imagination, and assist in a child's emotional development. It can be a healthier for a children to become comfortable with the idea of their own mortality through the loss of a pet, than to grapple with the grief of losing a beloved parent or relative.
For many, seeing a lost loved one dead (although painful) helps us to let go of a psychological primal denial. Healthy grieving gets us to accept and understand our loss. It is not necessary to see the entire body. Often to see only a recognizable portion of the body is enough. When you bring in the child to see the pet, do have them covered and as the child becomes more comfortable reveal more and more if there is not a negative emotional outburst.
We want our children to make these connections to death and its significance early on. Having lots of pets allows for many opportunities to teach the temporal limited value of a life and involvement in a pet burial allows a child to deal with their feelings and to do something for their companion.
Promote Healhty Grief (2)Encourage your children to gather at the grave site and share a special memory, or what they appreciated about their pet. At the time of burial, it is nice to help the child plant a tree sapling over the grave. This can help your child to learn about the idea of rebirth and transformation of life's energy within biological organisms; from death comes life. This can be a reassuring metaphor for us all.
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