Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Talking to kids about death
The ILs dog died right before New Year's. She was really old (14 or 15 years old) and had a lot of health problems. Since we go over to ILs house a lot M has known Sugar her whole life. The ILs had M this past Saturday since we were painting furniture and getting M's big girl room together. We haven't told M about Sugar passing away because frankly I don't know how to explain it to her.
I didn't know the ILs were taking M to their house after they went to the museum. As soon as they walk through the backdoor M called out for Sugar. MIL didn't say if she told M anything about Sugar not being there. MIL gets really emotional whenever Sugar is brought up so tonight we are going to talk to M about why Sugar isn't around anymore. Any suggestions would be appreciated. TIA!
Re: Talking to kids about death
I would just say to be prepared that one conversation doesn't resolve it and it will probably make her more likely to talk about it next time she's there (to try to process what you told her).
My sister's dog died recently and I tried to explain it to Connor. The next time he saw my sister, he must have brought it up 5 times (telling her the dog died, asking why, saying how, etc.). He was very proud of himself for knowing that the dog got out of the gate and was hit by a car. Awful. I think it made t worse for my sister.
This book came up in a search I did recently. Thankfully, I haven't yet had a reason to explain death to a young child, but I filed it away in my memory as a just-in-case.
http://www.amazon.com/Tenth-Good-Thing-About-Barney/dp/0689712030/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326206028&sr=8-1
It is specifically about the death of a pet. Most of the reviews are great, but I did notice that the 1 star reviews were concerned that they felt the book questioned the existence of heaven, so you might see if you can find it at the library to look at it and see if you feel like it is appropriate for your beliefs.
This is another one that I read with DS recently and loved that deals with the death of an animal friend in a more abstract way.
http://www.amazon.com/City-Dog-Country-Frog-Willems/dp/1423103009/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top