What's the best way to tell a 7 year old her hamster died?

I got some pet duckies for Easter one year. They were evil little bastards.


We had them for dinner one holliday.

 

Really its not something I would go to great lengths to prevent. That is, her finding out a pet died. But on a microcosmic level, it is traumatic. She was like 3 years old and had this goldfish she named Lizzie, after the popular TV character, Lizzie McGuire. We had her for about 2 weeks. She would say "Good morning Lizzie" when she got up. "Goodbye Lizzie" when she left. "Hello Lizzie" when she got home. One day we're out shopping and while at Wal-Mart we got her some new fish food. My daughter was saying stuff like "I bet she's gonna love her new food. She's gonna say yum yum". Cute.......yea I know. It wasn't so cute when we walked into her room and found her floating on the top. Dead. She was only 3 yet she knew it was dead right away. She still makes comments about that fish from time to time and actually gets sad about it. You can see it on her face. So anyone wanna tell me why this is a good thing?

It's not.

 

Never bought in to the it is good for a kid to have a pet croak line of bull****.

 

Yep.

It's just unnecessarily traumatic to their little world. This experience does nothing to prepare them for the death of a loved human being in their life. All it does is disappoint them terribly and remain a cause of grief for the parent to deal with. If the pet dies, say it ran away if that's even possible. If not, replace it if you can and hope they don't notice the black spot on its side that wasn't there before.

 

What's your suggestion then? lie? What age do you decide to explain reality to your kids? Do you let your kids know they're eating dead animals or do you tell them we picked the meat off the tree? If their old enough to ask, their old enough to be told.

 

I think my first acknowledgment of my own mortality was when I was around five and my dad took me out rabbit hunting. I thought about it a lot but I was OK.

 

The loss of the animal in its self is the most traumatic event. The child is confused and sad. Explaining death would help them over the turmoil not hinder.

 

Hey Phender, did Birdo make it, or has she gone to heaven ?

 

When I was much younger I remember reading somewhere a definition that has stuck with me my entire life:

"A person is a representation of his lifetime experiences, and how he dealt with each of them."

How we decide to face events is important to how we develop as a person. If we play games with the reality of death and try to pretend it is not reality with children, that will change who our children become as well.

I am not saying that we need to sit our 3 year olds down and talk about Darfur, but we should allow them the ability to see small realities like the eventual end of all life.

 

I guess I missed out never having a pet that croaked until I was 17. Probably why I am such an asshole today.