What To Tell The Daughter?

[soundman]

Four and a half year old daughter's pet cat (best friend for the last couple of months) got killed by the dogs.

What would be the best way to inform her of this?

Tell her the truth, that her pet kitten got ripped apart by the dogs?

Gloss it over and tell her the cat is dead and not much else?

Make up a story that the pet cat has gone to cat's heaven for reasons we can't understand?

Lie and tell her it has run away?

Sorry, I am at a loss here, because telling her the truth will probably make her very upset and hate the dogs, where as telling her something else will make me and my wife look bad/un-trustworthy when our daughter finally works out what happened years down the track, as I remember myself being pissed off with my parents upon finding out they had my pet, at my age of five years old, was euthanised for scratching my younger brother and telling me it ran away to heaven.

Advice from anyone on this issue?

Thanx,

Soundman.

[LadyHeather]

Gloss it over, she is far too young to hear the dogs killed her cat and it could very well cause her long-term issues with dogs.

[PeaceBlondie]

My daughter was about 2.5 when our dog died. I had to put it out on the porch for the pound to pick it up. When they came to take the carcass away, I diverted her attention. Later we told her the dog got sick, died, etc. I would never have told her the details if it had been mauled to death by vicious dogs. Just say the cat died. Say it got sick (which is true, kind of). It's not as if she will lose faith in you because you convinced her that Santa Claus scoots down the chimney.

[britmaveric]

Just tell her the cat died - the way lil ones learn about cycle of life. (details of what happened aren't necessary)

[torrenova]

Yeah, just that it is dead is sufficient. She will ask again later in life so you're better off going with a version of the truth rather than some fable.

[soundman]

Thanx for the replies.

[philo]

Deleted by self moderation ...

Edited December 10, 2008 by philo

[SomNamNah]

Gloss it over, she is far too young to hear the dogs killed her cat and it could very well cause her long-term issues with dogs.

and get a new kitten pronto! - but better explain its dead, but not by the dogs.

lost 7 cats growing up (apparently), only noticed the 7th cat died at about 8 years old, because i was the one that found it as a flat black hairy pancake on the road...

[paulfr]

I would tell my daughter it ran away.

This way you can say it is okay with another family

Even possible it will return someday.

She will forget in a few weeks.

Dogs and cats do run away in Thailand.

Enough trauma & tragedy in the world without

a little one needing to deal with all of it.

[bina]

my personal experience with lots of young kindergarten preschool age children and dead pets from gerbils to goats: depending on how u handle death of people and explanations u do the same for the cat.

if u have the body u can wrap it up so she only sees the head or whatever and do a burial, mark the grave and do your explanation in accordance to your religous philosophical point of view: cat in heaven, reincarnation, dead as a door nail, just remember: almost all children ask if it is asleep. u have to point out that dead is : no breathing, no movement, doesnt feel pain, doesn miss its parents, isnt hungry, and will not miracously return to life if u bury it.

some kids dont want to bury their animals, so u can dispose of it w/o telling them that u tossed in the garbage: took it to the city animal place, buried in the forest, whatever (here u can sort of lie).

not neccessary to replace right away. kitty died, we will wait a while and then find u a new kitty-- that is, the child will not feel that if SHE were to die u would run out and 'buy' a new child. sorry, but that is how children at that age usually see things. u can adopt a new one and stress that u gave the 'old' kitty a good life, but things happen that there is no control over like illness and death, and that the cat is a pet, not a person, so u can go and get an other, but that they are not disposable either. get a new one, different colour, or similar.

do not tell her dogs mauled the cat, just that there was an accident *u can be vague with details, even use a big bad car as an example why not to run in the road, etc and that kitty didnt know that.... and kitty died.

this is my advice as a councellor (in the past with kids and petting zoo, plus my own experiences with our pets from gerbils to dogs and even a baby horse once.) i discuss death with my kids from a very young age, each one has developed his/her own way of dealing, one is religous, one goes by science, and one seems to have a budhist bent in her view of life and death.

children are never too young to hear about death, as a matter of fact, children often deal with death better then we do as adults, as we fear it more as we get older... and children except for the occassional super sensitive child are more pragmatic and want more gory details also.

bina

israel

[simon43]

Many years ago when I lived in the UK the children's pet cat got run over on the village road. I found the cat stiff as a board in the winter evening. Our kids were 5 and 6 years old and my wife and I decided not to say anything to them about the death. Maybe the cat just wandered off I suggested. That evening, I dug a hole in the garden and buried the cat. Because the cat was stiff and the ground was frosted over I had big problems getting the dead animal to go into the hole! I ended up having to jump up and down on it's body to force it into the hole.

Several years later, I was talking about cats with my kids and the subject of this pet cat came up.

'Pity she just wandered off' I said to them.

'What do you mean?' they both chimed in. 'she was squashed by a car and we watched you jumping up and down on her to push her into that hole'...

Arn't kids sweet:)

Simon

[SomNamNah]

HAHAHA

[billd766]

We live out in the sticks and lose a couple of dogs a year to cars and the last one was my 4 year old sons favourite.

We explained that this one had also got hit by a car and he just accepted it as a fact of life in the countryside. Before anyone suggests fencing the land in we have about 20 rai of land which fronts onto the road and backs onto a national park and this makes it hard to keep any animals in.

The first 3 dogs we had lasted 1, 3 1/2 and nearly 6 years.

[phuketrichard]

when our pets died i also told my daughter the truth from 2 years on. that everything dies. She lieked to bury them and as she loved hamsters when she was young we had quite a graveyard out back

No reason to mention the dogs thou.

[bina]

jumpig up and down.....

we had the same problem with nero my poor boxer... ground was too hard to dig deep.and also we hit a previously dead dog (someone elses) bones that had been pulled around and about... we all know that the jackals dig up all the doggy graves here and take off with their booty.. as does the male hyena living in the area...

bina

israel