Advice please on children and explaining the death of a pet

[WhereTheWildThingsWere]

One of my lovely rats has just died.

I am unbelievably gutted, anyone who is not into small furries with any kind of 'it's just a rat' or similar comments, sooooooooo not welcome. I am in floods.

Anyway, the rats belong to me and ds who is 6.5, I have taken Bailey out of the cage and put him on a sheet and an old hammock in a box, so he looks very peaceful (I think he just died in his sleep).

So questions-

I would like ds to see Bailey and say goodbye, my Mum thinks this will be far too traumatic for him, thoughts?

What about dd who is only just three?

I think I need to tell her something, as one rat is clearly missing and she has them out everyday.

Should we involve her in saying goodbye, burying, or jusr tell her he has gone to the sky stuff.

I am so upset and finding it hard to think straight, I need mn help.

Thank you.

As a vet and a mummy this is something I come across quite a bit. IMO having pets allow children to experience and understand about death of a much loved pet before it is a relative. I am honest and talk about death and if the child sees the body explain that it is just a body and they are not there any more. If you believe in an afterlife (as I do) I would talk about this too. If you can have a funeral and burial children often like this idea and like to participate too.
I first did this with DD when she was 2.5 years.

It's not 'just a rat' - I was heartbroken when one of my girls died years ago.
I would involve both your children as Lizcat says (small downside is that when DH's auntie died, DS asked if we had to bury her in the garden next to the hamster).

Sorry for your loss I think a six and a half year old would be able to understand, and would probably want to be involved in saying goodbye. Maybe you could ask him if he wants to see the rat and let him decide. I'm not sure if I would want to see my pet once it was dead, or if my DCs would but everyone is different. The three year old will probably be incredibly matter of fact about it and not be upset! If you do believe in heaven etc, then it does make it much easier to explain to kids that the rat will be in a happy place etc and not to be sad.

I know its not quite the same but we had some of those triops things that are like water shrimps - there were two big ones and the DCs loved having them and feeding them. When they died we did bury them in the garden and talked about it.

Thank you all for replying.

It actually went far better than I expected, he asked to see him without any prompting and sat on the setttee for a while holding him in a box on his knee, stroking him and talking to him.

Then he went off and drew him a lovely picture and wrote him a note to bury with him (which had me in floods of tears).

Then we had a cuddle and a bit of a cry and talked about where he had gone and I read him 'Rainbow Bridge'.

And now he seems fine.

Dd came and stroked him while ds was and asked why he wasn't moving, I said his body had got very tired and would stay asleep now but his soul had gone to heaven to play with all the other rats, she said 'okay' and hasn't mentioned it again.