One of the hardest
things to explain to a child is death, but as much we wish it weren’t true,
it’s a natural part of life and it happens to every living thing.
For many
children, the death of a pet is the first time they have to face this painful
chapter of life. Grief is an extremely complicated emotion, usually involving a
mixture of confusing feelings of pain, sadness, guilt, anger, and fear of their
own death, or the death of family members.
1.
Honor
the pet.
Most
cultures have ceremonies or rituals to honor those we have lost. It helps us
accept the loss and recognize the importance of the loved one in our lives.
Children may find comfort in such a ceremony or in some sort of memorial of
their beloved pet.
2.
Embrace
memories.
The
finality of death doesn’t erase the memories we have made. Helping children
record and visualize their memories can help them see how the pet lives on in
their hearts.
3.
Identify
feelings.
As
I mentioned earlier, there are so many feelings bundled together in the form of
grief. Helping children sort out each feeling and understand why they feel
those things, can help them embrace all feelings as normal. When we are able to
define feelings, we can separate our actions from them. Often, when a child
acts out, he or she is having trouble not only articulating but understanding
what they are feeling.
Having
emotional intelligence begins with being able to define feelings and see how
emotions often come in groups and that they, therefore, have roles to play in
helping us through difficult times.
4.
List
ways to sooth sadness.
Just
like we take aspirin when we have physical pain, we find ways to sooth
emotional pain. Sometimes those are healthy tools, and sometimes they’re not.
Helping children find healthy ways to sooth painful feelings can help lay the
groundwork healthier responses to adult feelings. Helping children make a list
of things that make them feel better can give them a toolbox to reach for when
they don’t know what to do with what they are feeling.
5.
Tell
them crying is good.
Speaking
of soothing painful feelings, our body has a natural reaction to feelings of
sadness and anger—crying. Often we think we are soothing children by telling
them not to cry, that there’s no reason to cry. However, crying is important,
in a very real way. It even releases a bit of a natural pain killer. I believe
that when we deny our bodies of their own instinctive reactions, we confuse our
emotions and delay our emotional processing. With grief, in particular,
delaying the process of grief can extend our pain.
6.
Make
sure they understand it’s not their fault.
We
often immediately identify feelings of sadness and anger when it comes to
grief. Those are frequently the first to present themselves and the most
dominant of the feelings we may have when we’ve lost someone or something close
to us. One of the trickier emotions is guilt. Guilt usually comes in a package
with its own protective shell of confusion and shame. It is especially
important for children to understand they are not at fault when a pet’s death
is outside our control. Misplaced guilt can have long-term effects on
children’s self-esteem.
Death
is a natural part of life but even adults often find grief to be a difficult
journey at any age. Humans have forever been trying to find ways to avoid
death. And while medical and technical advances have helped to extend lives,
we’ve yet to find a way to keep living things from eventually dying.
There
are so many ways to help children process the death of a pet. I’ve outlined a
few here, but I have created some practical activities you can share with
children ages 6 to 10 in the activity book Memories of You. It’s
important to help children visualize in a very real way what they feel and
need, and this workbook uses art and writing activities that can help children
understand what they are feeling, how they are reacting, and how to move
forward.
Here are some ways
you might use this activity book with a student:
Send a
book home with parents when they request help (this is one of the most
effective ways to use them with students).
After a
counseling session, hand one to students and have them work in it independently.
Use it
as part of your individual counseling sessions (do a couple pages each session).
Print
them and select certain pages to work with students or small groups.
Make
selected activities be a part of a whole class lesson (i.e. teach lesson about
self-confidence then give each student their own book).
After
sessions with students, have a folder where they complete five pages and then during
next week’s session discuss those five. Give them another five until they
complete the entire book.
To download a copy
of Memories of You, visit my TpT Store HERE.