How can I help my daughter get over this?

[1wokeuplikethis]

My 6 yo dd’s hamster died about 6 weeks ago. At the time she was absolutely distraught, she sobbed for a whole day, said she wished she was dead to be with him. We did a little funeral in the garden and she wrote him a letter & drew a picture.

She talked about him a lot the first week and I tried to soothe her; I understand, it’s normal to feel like this, it is very sad, and made up things about him being in hamster heaven. Bedtimes were the worst, she’d get herself upset and i would repeat the above because I wanted to validate her feelings, as far as I was concerned she was feeling very normal. This is her first experience of death.

Fast forward to now, last week she was eating her breakfast and just dissolved into tears saying she misses her hamster. So I tried to divert the sadness by recalling funny things the hamster did to try and make her laugh. She is writing a story at school this week and it is all about her hamster. Last night she made another picture of him before bed and this morning she’s made something crafty with lollipop sticks and drawn a picture of the hamster. But again this morning she just lay on the stairs sobbing about him.

I’m thinking now I should stop indulging the sadness and be a bit firmer. So I said to her let this be the last day you feel sad about the hamster. After today when you think of him try and feel happy that he was such a great pet, had a happy life, he would want you to be happy etc but to be honest I’m completely lost on how to deal with this and make her feel better.

I got some photos of him printed and put in her room because she wanted me to and I thought that would help make her feel better to be able to see him again.

She is not easy to placate and my words of comfort just don’t seem to do anything to help, she is still utterly fixated on him and that he’s gone. This morning she was talking about getting some brown fluff and making the hamster.

The easiest option would be to buy another hamster but we really don’t want to do that and anyway we would be back here again in another couple of years.

Does anyone have any advice to help her get over this because I am so out of my depth.

I honestly don't know, but one idea might be to try to busy her brain elsewhere. The human brain can apparently only hold 7 things at once. If you think she has had plenty of time to process and it's getting to be an unhealthy pattern, maybe give her a busy half term to give her lots of more positive things to think about, and break the cycle. Still be sympathetic when she brings it up - yes it is very sad - pause - shall we have ice cream before the park or go to the park first?

I wouldn't be encouraging any more special things in honour of the hamster.

I think 6 is quite young to be feeling this so keenly, so she is quite sophisticated in that sense. However children of this age tend to lack a sense of proportion - however much they appear to understand, they don't tend to have the life experience to have developed much of an internal scale of proportion to distinguish between little problems and big problems. This can make even the smallest problem feel huge. I don't think now is necessarily the time to start talking about big vs small problems, as death is a huge problem, it's just bear in mind for you. To you it comes down to it only being a hamster at some point, but she doesn't have the life experience to gauge that.

Sorry but I'm another one laughing over the plot twist

Could it be that her grief over the hamster has translated into a handy way of getting positive attention/cuddles? My eldest did something similar - pet died, we supported her through it, but I think we overdid it a bit, because months later, she'd be playing for time and not going to bed, I'd get a bit cross, and then she'd come out with the golden ticket of "but I'm just so sad about Fluffy". Of course I'd read all the stuff about how vital it is to validate your child's emotions and make sure they are heard, so I fell for it a few times and I'd end up sitting for ages chatting about Fluffy. Then I realised it was a ploy to stay up later, so after that I just stuck to "yes it's very sad about Fluffy, we can have a nice chat about him tomorrow after school, but now it's bedtime"

Strangely enough she never wanted to chat about Fluffy after school, that was play time!

We got a cat.

Yes I think you're right, be firm.