Telling young children about their granny's dog not well/dying

[Mirrorball]

We think we'll get a call this week saying poor doggy's being put down after being very ill and not fair to have him carry on ... our children are very attached...

Any experience? They are 3 and 5.

Feeling very sad....

Sorry to hear that.

We had our old boy pts in March, when the kids were 2.5 and 5.

Tbh I don't think the 2.5yo noticed, though she loved him very much, now and again she used to ask where he was and I just used to say 'he's out atm' and she soon forgot.

5yo was devastated (as was I and dp) we all just cried a lot and told him that was ok and it was right to feel sad when someone you have loved has died.

I did tell him that he was just very old and too poorly for the vet to fix though and while we were at the vets he died.

I felt the whole concept of being pts would raise too many questions for him, that might make him very worried, ie might we do the same to him if he was very poorly.

I do have experience of telling a 3yo. For the first time dp a atheist was glad I was catholic. I told him nanny's cat had a big baddie and the doctors couldn't fix it so she had to go to heaven where her mummy is so god could fix her baddie.

He was happy and accepted it because he is young enough to believe what mummy tells him. He did keep forgetting for a few weeks and would try to call her and we had to explain again but he handled it a lot better than I thought.

So sorry to hear you are going through this are you a atheist?

My children are 5 and 3 and Granny's golden retriever was PTS. I told them that she was very poorly and the vet couldn't make her better so she died and that granny & grandad were very sad. They were both upset but not overly so. I've always been very upfront and honest about talking about death in a matter of fact way. I'm sure I could be criticised for not sugar-coating it but both kids seem to have a fairly robust view of it all so far.

It has to be something you are comfortable with. For our family, this meant the honest, the dog was very ill, and the vet helped it to die in a comfortable way, so that it did not suffer. For us, it really made the whole thing easier not to make up a story, and to emphasise that the vet did a good, kind and helpful job.

Other family friends have gone down the "up in heaven" route. This actually upset me more, but I think I understand why they did it. DD was 2, 4 then 5, then 10 when various pets died, and wants to be a vet now. So for us, I am sure it was the right route to go down.

Now very when I think about all the dead pets though.