How to explain death of a family pet to a four year old

[Upsydaisy1]

Our beloved family cat died this morning and I have to go home tonight and explain this to him. Any ideas as to how to handle this would be much appreciated.

Dc adored cat and although I don't want to lie I'm not sure that a four year old needs to know the brutal facts of life and death.

We have to bury our cat tonight so what do I say?

I would just tell the truth, I am a great believer in it and feel that my 4yr old would understand and handle it.

It is quite a good lesson to learn (IMHO), death is a fact of life, I am about to tell my dcs that their grandfather is dead (he is on his way out).

Another vote for the truth here, how else do you explain the cats disapearance.
ImO the cat has died, because he was old and not very well and has gone to cat heaven (if you believe).
When someone or something dies it means we can stilll love them, they still love us but we cannot see them anymore.

be prepared for questions though.

Sorry for your family's loss

tell the truth. he will prob deal with it better than you, kids are like that

Twigglet once posted a great way of explaining death to a child.

Basically you use a sock. Put it on your hand and the sock represents the person and the hand represents the persons soul.
You basically take the sock off and explain that although the person goes away, they will always be with you, that kind of thing.

I think alot of it comes down to your personal beliefs though and what exactly you want to teach your children.

I really liked that explanation and in actual fact I used it to explain death to my dd who is 4 just a few weeks ago as my mum and dads cat died and she was very fond of her.

I think children tend to be much more matter of fact about death at this age.

When I had to break the news to DS2 that our cat had died he said "oh dear", shortly followed by "does that mean that we can get some kittens now?"

I think he was 4 or 5 at the time!