Talking to small children about the death of a beloved animal

MOE

When you have animals life and death are something you have to face on a regular basis. Being born, life, death; it´s all part of the circle of life. When there are children in the family it´s important to encourage questions about these matters. Especially when a beloved animal dies.

Our Moe, the baby alpaca didn´t wake up yesterday. He wasn´t sick, he never suffered, he just didn´t wake up from his sleep. Hayley is too young to notice that Moe is missing since we have so many animals and they didn´t have a special connection.

If I was to explain his death to a toddler I would simply say that his body stopped working. At this age everything in their world is literally and I would make it as concrete and simple as possible. I would speak clearly about the very basic things, not over explain or talk too much. It´s better to just be there for the child and answer any question the child may have. It´s often comforting to see where the beloved animal is buried.

 

If the child is older than six years of age they begin to understand more about death but it´s still best with clear, simple, explanations about what happened. Children understand more than we think and I believe in honest answers. That is much better than just avoiding a sensitive matter, or give vague answers. If they have questions we don´t have an answer to it´s OK to say that we don´t know.

One of my son’s favorite things to do (he´s seven) is to go to the library and search for answers together. I always encouraged him to ask questions. The art of finding answers to questions is changing all the time. Maybe we can´t find all the answers in a book. Maybe we have to Google the answers together with our kids, visit a museum, talk to an elderly person, travel together…If our kids are aware of the importance of continuing to ask and search for new knowledge they will be successful in life.