URGENT URGENT DS'S FISH HAS JUST DIED!!!!!

[moosh]

Quick someone have 15 mins before I have to pick up ds1 (5yrs). Have just discovered one of his fish that my MIL bought him for his birthday LAST WEEK has just pegged it!
Not quite sure what to tell him, I am waiting for dh to get home to remove it. Do I tell him straight away or do I try to distracyt him till dh gets home who will remove fish and explain a whole lot better that me. HE ONLY HAD IT FOR ABOUT A WEEK!!!!

[beansprout]

Ah, definitely one for dh I think!!

[oatcake]

lol. good luck! sorry - no advice as I don't know how you bring your child up, but I usually find honesty to be the best policy.

Our cat died on new years eve and my mum died last july and although ds is younger than yours, he took it ok and now knows that death is part of the life cycle.

Unless, you go past a pet shop on your way to school

[colditzmum]

tell him its asleep, and has been poorly all day so he mustn't try to wake it up, then covertly replace it!!

[bundle]

he's 5, he can handle the idea of death i'm sure and may even be a bit sad. i thought that's one of the reasons we had pets...

[beansprout]

Lol Colditzmum!!

[KateandtheGirls]

My daughter, who was then aged 4, had a fish last year. We had had him for several months. One day when I was cleaning his bowl out he jumped out of the little cup I had transferred him into, and ended up down the garbage disposal in the sink. I felt so terrible, and there was no way I could tell her what had actually happened to him, so I told her that he had jumped out and gone down the sink, but told her that he would have gone down the pipes and eventually ended up in a lake somewhere...

[lunavix]

Tell him it had a fight with the other fish and moved out?

[beansprout]

This is slightly different but when I was 6 I got home one day to find the dog had gone. I was told it had been taken somewhere to live where it would be happy and to this day when I picture it, I imagine him playing on a slide.

[beansprout]

Tell him it is a buddhist monk, not doing much and seeking enlightenment? (sorry, ref to other thread...)

[moosh]

No pet shops on the way I'm afraid. Dh said just "tell him I don't think he'd be that bothered he would moan everytime we used to get him to put a pinch of food in tank for them" well here goes wish ,me luck! I thought fish were supposed to be easy !

[colditzmum]

We had a wooded area behind the house I grew up in.

I only recently (age 19!) realised that hamsters do NOT "see the nice woods out of the window and run away to live wuth their rabbit friends."

Thanks Mum.

[beansprout]

CM - perhaps your hamster is happily co-habiting somewhere with my dog?

[honeybunny]

Surely a 5yr old can be told about death and dying. My 2 (4 and 2.75) have g/fish and they are always dying. We flush them down the loo to send them back to fishy heaven. ds1 was much more upset about our cat dying last week. She had a proper burial in the garden and we planted a nice plant on top of her as a memorial and the boys gave her a stroke to say goodbye. They were v accepting of it, but v sad too.

[oatcake]

bit of an aside here, but fish should be kept in odd numbers so that any bad chi in the house is absorbed by the odd fish who dies. Once this happens, get yourself another so you've again got an odd number.

Strangely enough, 2 days after putting mum's ashes on the mantelpiece, one of the fish died... hmmm...

[oatcake]

condolences honeybunney. miss my cat loads!

[Angeliz]

DD had a goldfish last year that she won at a fair when i was in a very leniant mood!! (Have never wanted a fish myself!!)

We had it a few weeks and then it died when at my mams when we were away on holiday)
DD was 3 at the time.
When we got home i told her Nemo ,(yes very original ) had gotten very poorly and sadly had died. She was quiet but quickly forgot.
Personally i thought honesty was the best policy at that time.
DD still asks about Nemo and talks about him and i think it taught her in quite a mild way about death and dying as the norm!!
IYKWIM..........

[Angeliz]

Have to admit, i couldn't tell her nana had flushed it down the loo so i said she had taken it to a lake and put it in their to be with it's family

What was i saying about honesty................

[moosh]

Well I told him. He was a little sad and because Violet is still in the bottom of the tank I did a big explanation about a second body inside us called our soul and the fish angels have come and taken Violets soul up to fishy Heaven. Dash (Violet and Dash out of The Incredibles.)is still darting around the tank like a nutter lets hope he survives the night eh. He wants me to buy another fish so I will but it will be his last he doesn't want Dash to get lonely.
He is alright, in the bath singing away and playing with his toys.

[bundle]

good result, moosh

[Kelly1978]

that's good Moosh. We have a large tank of tropical fish, and I never actually bothered with explanations. My dd (4) has seen fish fighting over the dead bodies of smaller fish that have died. She is never bothered in the least, just says something like 'oh that bad fish eating him, I liked that one'.

[Kelly1978]

Oh and if we actually flush them down the loo, she is quite happy with the explanantion they've goen out to sea. I think at a young age, simple is best!

[misdee]

dd1 tells me when fish are eating each other. we had a rather nasty red finned shark who ate everything, and she used to tell it off. now we dont have it anymore less fish are dying and being eaten. she loves the betta tho, and even tho its a fighting fish it seems very docile compared to the shark.

[Kelly1978]

bettas are lovely, they are very docile when kept away from other bettas. Our betta got eaten as the fish have gotten bigger :-( RTS are lethal, mine chases the barbs that are twice his size. It's my parrotfish who eats everything tho. She's abt 8 inches now, and very hungry!

[lucy5]

weve had about goldfish for about a year"nemo and dory" I think we are on about our third set. When the latest one died we told our dd (4)that he had gone on holiday because she saw he was gone before we got to the petshop. Well we never got round to replacing him and my dd sometimes remarks that hes been away for a long time. Ooops.