one of our chinchillas has just died .....

[Maddison]

naturally we are upset, but what do we tell 4 year old ds1 who i'm picking up from school in just under 1/2 an hour? i'm thinking of not telling him until he realises, but still, what do we tell him?

tell him you will be able to make him a lovely snuggly warm winter hat for christmas

Suzywong and spray.

Tell him the truth.

I had to tell dd about death when she was 3 afer my mum's dog died. I told her that sometimes, when an animal is really, really old or really, really poorly, their bodies can't work any more, and so they die. It means we can never see them again, and that makes us sad, but we can still think about them all the time and remember all the happy things about them. Her next question was whether people died too, and I told her that they did, but reinforced that it usually only happens when someone is very old.

If you want to read a story book to her that deals with the death of a pet in a sensitive way that young children can understand, Goodbye Mog by Judith Kerr is good.

sorry
of course I regretted that the moment I pressed Post Message, but it was just too good an opportunity to pass up, always look on the bright side and all that

Maddison- my ds1's pet rat died a few weeks back, I was very matter of fact, and explained he had got old and had died. He is 4 too, he asked where he had gone, and I said his spirit is up in the clouds, and he liked that. I thought there would be tears, but he didn't seem fazed at all....in fact he hasn't even mentione dit since- I think it would be disturbing to find his pet suddenly "missing", so I would tell him. Good luck