When It's Time to Go, Telling the Kids or No?

I was just reading the sticky about euthanasia and thought a topic we might discuss is our human children and making the decision. Of course it depends on our individual feelings about the nature of death and the grief process. Some people have family pet burial areas with tombstones and flowers. In other homes the reaction is more " Oh Binky bought the farm, we'll buy you another gerbil".

There aren't any right or wrong answers on the topic really so we needn't attack each other. Personally I've always preferred the idea they just ran away. The one time the children were with me was when my in-laws dog Jackie took her last trip to the vet. While we all managed to comfort each other it was still traumatic for everyone involved. Since then we've lost several cats from natural causes or accidents.

In each case I stuck to the idea they disappeared. My daughter is special needs so an explanation of illness or accident would go over her head. Then there's the gruesome reality we want to protect our kids from. All of us know someone who remembers even as an adult seeing a beloved pet laying curbside. I feel children don't need that image to accept the finality of death. I can still see our cats Delilah and Snowball many years back.

In both cases neighbors told us they had seen them hit by cars. Snowball managed to stagger to an alley where I found him with obvious brain damage, one eye already swelling. Delilah had made it to the grass before he passed on. The flies were already there. Horrible for an adult never mind a child. For our smaller creatures we have a cemetery in a side yard, the larger ones "ran off".

How have others coped with pet loss and their human children? It might be healing to share our experiences.

We have lost numerous hamsters, but both my children knew they had died. With hamsters though it was easier as they went to sleep, all through natural causes. We lost our cat 2 years ago and unfortunately my daughter found her, she was 14 so older but still really upset as she's been around all her life, again it was natural causes as she was nearly 19 when she died. If I'd told my daughter or son when they were younger that their pet had run away it it would upset them even more, so for me I'd always explained about the hamsters and our rabbit. But I do understand why others don't as having worked in schools, I know how different children are.

I agree with Mandy that some children might be more upset if they thought their beloved pet had just run away - would they not wonder why you did not go out looking for it?

Looking at it another way, what would you say to your child if - say - their grandparent or other relative had died? You cannot say that they had just run away could you?

I remember that when at Primary school the Headmaster told everyone during Assembly that one of the children at our school had died. He was very careful about what he said, saying that little John [I do not remember his name] had been ill and the doctors could not make him better, so he died and went to heaven.

It all depends on the age of the children which was not mentioned in the first post. For young children the talk of death is definately a no no. First they would not properly understand about quality of life and I strongly suspect it would give them nightmares.

For older children , maybe in the early teens, the reality of life and death they may not fully comprehend but should be able to accept with a few tears

For older teenagers understanding by this time should be the norm. Everyone no matter what age gets upset when a much love pet reaches the end of life either naturely or terminated as the quality of life is no longer there.

Also not mentioned is the childrens character which can play a big part as to when and if you should tell them and how. For very young children who insist on knowing then possibly the "fairy tale" approach is best

My daughter was 5 years and 4 months old and my son 3 years and one month old when their beloved Grandpa - my Father z"l died. He had been in hospital for the last nine months of his life and I would take the children to visit him when I took Mother. every day.

They knew that Grandpa was ill - my son, who since a baby really only knew him as a sick person in hospital, asked me once if "the black boxes in those big black cars were taking people who were too ill for G-d to make better to Heaven". [We do not have flowers for funerals and coffins in the UK are just covered with a black cloth in hearses.]

So when Father died I just told them that the doctors could not make Grandpa better, and G-d could not help the doctors make him better, so He had taken his soul so that he was not ill any more and that he did not need his ill body any more.

The way I explained it was to ask them to close their eyes, and were they still "them" inside their heads. And the "them" is their soul, so whether their eyes are open or closed, they were still "them". So they were able to accept his death, even at those young ages, whether they understood death itself or not. And no, neither of them were frightened or had nightmares - they just understood that the person they knew as Grandpa was no longer someone they would see or could touch.

All children are different, and all adults are different, and I think that it depends on how you were brought up and whether you have any beliefs as to how people - both children and adults - can cope with the death of pets or people.

what a lovely way to explain it malka x

Thank you Claire. I do not know whether they understood what death was but I do know that they understood "where" Grandpa was. It is the custom in my religion to lay someone to rest before nightfall on the day they die, but Father died just after 10am on a Friday morning, too late for the Burial Society to get everything done before the Sabbath came in. So he was laid to rest at 12 noon on the Sunday and a friend took my children for that day because I knew that it was going to be harrowing day and really the only day I could mourn, showing my feelings.

But when his [very plain, just as he had wanted] tombstone was up but before it was consecrated - in the UK it is 11 months after a death - here in Israel it is on the 30th day - I took Mother, and my children, to the Burial Grounds [in Bushey, Hertfordshire] to see it. And because of how I had explained things to the children they understood that although the physical body of their Grandpa was in a box under that stone, his soul was with G-d.

I took both of them, with Mother for the consecration, telling them that a lot of Grandpa's friends, and as many relatives we could find to contact, would be there. Not to mourn/cry but to give thanks to G-d for Grandpa's life and thanks that he was no longer sick and in pain. And although some people said I was wrong to do so, many were pleased that I did.

They were not frightened, young as they were, and they were never scared about death after that.

But all children are different and it all depends on what they are told/taught.

I think it's a very subjective thing and not something that is a one size fits all approach. My daughter is 5 and in her short life so far she's been exposed to the death of two very much loved family pets.

My husbands horse was one of her first words, she sadly was with me the morning we found him unable to get up, but saw how distressed her father and I were and knew why we were crying.

The other was my flatcoated retriever, she knew he was poorly and we explained that he was sick but would be going to Heaven, we aren't that religious but have used that as a means of explaining it, she then asked if there was chocolate in heaven

Fortunately she didn't see the dog being put to sleep as fortunately for us it was in the evening when he became that bad that I knew it was time and the vet came to us for him to be PTS with his head in my lap on the kitchen floor. She was upstairs in bed and the next morning she asked where he was and we explained he had been taken away by the vets. We still have a dog so I think for a young child that helped fill the void a bit.

Now she is that bit older we will have to face it again I know with our other dog and as he's 13 it'll be in the next year or two I think. That will definately upset her as this dog has been her best friend since she was born.

Never a happy conversation to have though

I have always been honest. (Our elderly dog was PTS this week so this is a bit raw). But yes, absolute honesty.

After we got home from putting our lvoely lady to sleep on Monday, my 13 year old burst into tears and said: "I want to see her again, now!" I have 5 kids and all kids react differently to grief (I discovered that when my dad died a few years back - was so busy coping with the kids grieving in different ways it took me a long time to grieve for him, myself).

But I think if you lie to them you rob them of an authentic reaction to something which is part of life (death). Also, death of a pet can be a useful rehearsal for later traumas like deaths of grandparents. I was a child when my mum died but that wasn't the first death I had experienced, as I had had at least one beloved dog die and that helped.

One of my sons is autistic and he is the one most bonded to my pets, probably. But even he gets the unvarnished truth.

I would draw the line at taking a child in with us whilst a pet was PTS, but yes - my last two dogs have been PTS and both times, the kids knew ahead of time so they all got a chance to speak to and cuddle the dog, tell them they loved them, say their goodbyes.

Kids are only kids for a brief time. As teenagers, or adult kids, they will put two and two together and figure out they were lied to. But it also robs them of an important part of life - grieving - to pretend a pet ran away. Also, TBH, if I was 8 and told my beloved dog ran away - the scenarios going through my head ("Was she run over? Is she lying injured and terrified in a ditch?") would be a thousand times worse than the reality.

I think everyone makes wonderful points. It's also about knowing our kids, their ages, our spiritual feelings about death. My daughter is 14 but her cognitive reasoning is around 6. Even the term "put to sleep" might be construed as things can be made to go to sleep and not ever wake up...whoa could that happen to people too???!!!!

For a child able to understand the biological and spiritual of death it can certainly be an important conversation to have as parents. We have to tailor it to each child and what they can comprehend. Thank you everyone for sharing.