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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to feel so terribly sad :(

155 replies

extremepie · 04/06/2011 11:28

Came down this morning to find my 4 yr old DS 'playing' with our guinea pig quite roughly. He didn't mean to but I think he broke her back as she couldn't walk when I found her.

She died in my arms about half an hour later.

DS keeps saying he is sorry and didn't mean to hurt her (which I know he didn't).

Yesterday got home from work to find that our other guinea pig had been found mysteriously dead in her cage when my husband got up in the morning.

Now I know why.

I just feel so terrible that, even though he didn't mean it, my son killed our guinea pigs. They weren't that old so should have lived much longer, plus they died in pain.

Have been crying all morning, burst out again every time I look at the cage. Don't even want DS around me at the moment, don't want to talk to him or do anything for him right now.

Sad day :(

OP posts:
SarahLundsredJumper · 04/06/2011 14:11

Extremepie
Sorry that you have lost your piggies Sad
I have had GPs since childhood -so lots of em and they can become ill very quickly and without warning.I wonder if your DS got the GP out because it was distressed (and the other already dead).
They can become ill and die within hours .
Have you done a burial etc for GPs -found this helpful and perhaps your DS might want to talk a bit more about it .

tooposh · 04/06/2011 14:12

Are you all being too quick to assume it was the POP's little boy that caused their deaths? Upstream a poster said that once one Guinea pig dies, the companion is often soon to follow. Perhaps the one that died yesterday died utterly of natural causes, and the one today was on his/her way out. Can you get a vet to confirm whether it had a broken back or not? If not, then I bet its death had nothing to do with your son at all. I would have thought that a normally gentle child would be unlikely to kill 2 guinea pigs in two days, especially as you have NO reason whatsoever to think it was him yesterday.... Get a post mortem and then put it out of your mind when you find out it was not him. meanwhile, use the opportunity to talk about beings that are smaller and more vulnerable than we are, and about how sometimes animals get sick and don't get better.

Morloth · 04/06/2011 14:15

If I was you OP and DS1 was in this situation, I would be telling him that the animal was already sick and would have died anyway.

You can still remind him at all times to be careful and gentle, but I wouldn't be able to sleep worrying that my little boy thought he had killed a beloved pet when there was a good chance he had not.

valiumredhead · 04/06/2011 14:16

I agree with Beesimo - he's FOUR and should've been taught how to handle the GPs properly or at the least a padlock on the cage door, I wouldn't be in a hurry to march him off to a child psychologist quite yet!

WorzselMummage · 04/06/2011 14:17

Who lets 4 year olds play with animals unsupervised ? they are not toys FFS!

shineoncrazydiam0nd · 04/06/2011 14:17

Sorry to hear this OP - i have not read the thread in it's entirety but will take a guess that people are probably suggesting your child is a serial killer in the making?

This is just not true. My DS is 4 and prone to 'rough' play with our puppy. I really have to watch him. Now, he loves her to bits but i am quite convinced that, to a 4 year old, they are a confusing mixture of part toy, part animal. I have found my 4 year old covering our puppy in grass, trying to pour sand on her and carrying her in a not so gentle fashion.

All any of us can do is constantly educate young children. I would never leave my 4 year old alone with the dog as I just can't trust him to not 'forget' that she is a living creature. Same with his hamster - he knows how to play gently but needs keeping an eye on. I keep the hamster cage on a high shelf to stop him deciding to take it out without my knowledge.

If your child was older - 7 or 8, then yes, I would be worried. But a 4 year old is little more than a toddler and education and a close eye is the key here - not psychological assessments!

EvenLessNarkyPuffin · 04/06/2011 14:23

Some of it's common sense. A child that age should not be able to take a small pet out of a cage - padlock it. And puppies should not be carried by children. Full stop.

archieleach · 04/06/2011 14:24

OP yes it is sad but don't cry, that is puffy.
And the third poster; no he will not grow up to be a murderer. Only DM readers believe that murderers started by killing animals.

Lcy · 04/06/2011 14:27

I would not be concerned about your little boy growing into a psychopath as some are basically suggesting. He showed sadness and kept saying sorry that he had hurt the guinea pig - not the usual behavior seen in children that have anti social tendencies and hurt / torture animals. I had lots of guinea pigs when i was little and that is because they kept dying (through natural causes). It is quite possible that the second guinea was ill as well.

I agree with Morloth that I would not want him to think he had killed his pet but would help him do a little service for the guniea pig and say goodbye without blame. There will be plenty of opportunities in the future to work on him being gentle and he will of course get less rough as he gets older.

I hope you are all out in the sunshine and feeling happier now!

pigletmania · 04/06/2011 14:28

paddington what warning signs Hmm the boy is a young child who like one poster said they are like bulls in china shops. We should not be making big assumptions into the psychological wellbeing of a young child bearely out of nappies. Read bessimo posts, she hits the nail on the head.

shineoncrazydiam0nd · 04/06/2011 14:29

thank you for educating me narky. I didn't realise that Hmm

pigletmania · 04/06/2011 14:30

A big mistake happened here, the op was careless and somehow the young boy managed to get hold of the GP's. There is no evidence that the boy killed the first hamster, it mysteriously died, gosh people are pinning all this blame onto a very small boy.

pigletmania · 04/06/2011 14:31

The op found her ds playing roughly with the second hamster, not pulling its legs off and prodding its eyes out ffs. He is a little boy who does not have a clue how to handle small animals.

BrianAndHisBalls · 04/06/2011 14:33

archieleach Sat 04-Jun-11 14:24:53
OP yes it is sad but don't cry, that is puffy.

'puffy'?? Shock nice.

pigletmania · 04/06/2011 14:33

There is no evidence that the boy killed the second hamster by playing roughly with it, could have died as the first one had gone the day before, and as one poster has said that the vet told her that GPs do die suddenly or something like that. The boy is fine I don't think there is anything wrong with him from what I read in the OP.

shineoncrazydiam0nd · 04/06/2011 14:34

Ha haaaaaa... Is that what she meant?

NorthernGobshite · 04/06/2011 14:34

Thats just shite alpine, children are often rough and careless with pets if not supervised. OP, please try not to be cross with your son, he made a mistake. In future pets need to be kept out of reach unless he is upervised, at 4 he's too small to know how to handle small animals gently.

KurriKurri · 04/06/2011 14:34

Like Shiny - I'm a bit sad that some people have suggested there is something malicious in your DS's behaviour. He's a little boy - too young to properly understand about gentleness with little animals - guinea pigs are quite sensitive little animals, and it doesn't take that much to hurt them. Also he won't have any idea about death and the permanence of it, he's too little.

I'm sorry you feel sad OP - it is a very sad thing to have happened.

A small suggestion, - I realise you are holding off on pets until he's a bit older, but how about a trip to a petting zoo or one of those farm places, where you can supervise him and he can practice very gentle patting and stroking Smile

shineoncrazydiam0nd · 04/06/2011 14:34

There are some right illiterate nutters on here at the moment. But I digress.

fifi25 · 04/06/2011 14:39

Dont know if rabbits are like guine pigs but i had 2 8 year old rabbitts. One died and its partner who shared a hutch died less than 36 hrs later. Who knows if the child broke its back, no one will know unless they do a guinea pig autopsy. They could have died from natural causes. Too many what if's.

Bucharest · 04/06/2011 14:39

Some posts on here (from both sides) are odd in the extreme.

No,the child is probably not a serial killer in the making. No-one needs to call the RSPCA and I doubt even that the cage needed to be padlocked. The child should simply have been told he wasn't to do it, then he shouldn't have done it.

However he has killed 2 small animals. (There might be no "proof" but come on.......) He now, at 4 is old enough to be told he did wrong, and big time, and there should be no more pets in the household until he is older. The fact that he was caught the second time, and then 'fessed up to there having been a first time, (with resulting dead guinea pig) I'd have thought was proof enough.

"rough play" is not an excuse for hurting (in this case killing) a small animal. The child didn't know that (which tbh, beggars belief in my eyes,but there you go) now he does. He won't do it again. (I would hope)

QuickLookBusy · 04/06/2011 14:41

I took a lovely photo of DD with our new kitten. It was only as I put the camera down that I realised if she carried on cuddling kitty like that she would squeeze it to death. This kind of thing can happen so quickly, thank goodness I was stood right in front of her, saw it and was able to have a talk about never picking up the cat again, without me or DH being there.

I can't believe how some posters have jumped on a 4 year old.

NorthernGobshite · 04/06/2011 14:45

Children who hurt pets ON PURPOSE and MALICIOUSLY are to be worried about. OP's child appears to have just held onto his pet too tightly. Children often struggle to hold small wriggly animals correctly and can hurt them as a result. I am appalled that people are pathologising what appears to be an accident.

fifi25 · 04/06/2011 14:45

and also if he has done it i dont think he would have said right here guinea guinea im think i will break your back. What probably happed is he had a hold of it and it wriggled or scratched him, he dropped it and then picked it up. My ds2 kicked my friends chow from one end of the room to the other after it attached itself to her ankle. Just lucky damage wast done to it and it was ok.

NorthernGobshite · 04/06/2011 14:47

bucharest no one is excusing it, its being explained. different.

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