Sleeping With The Fishes

[4getmenot]

on my fb this morning a lady as asked where she can find a certain type of fish before her 4 yr old notices his is dead. Everybody is telling her where but me. Am i just harsh because i would tell the child the truth?

[Canary42]

Yes

[MadMen]

Tell the child. Death is something they'll have to deal with at some point.

[AlwaysConfused]

Pets should be a gateway for children to learn about life...and death. As a kid, I would cry for a good ten minutes before the final prayer and the flushing of the fish down the toilet. Hamsters were buried in the woods, cats in the garden, and dogs had coffins, also buried in the garden.

The children will start thinking about the pet, then go on to the bigger questions about life and death.

[4getmenot]

exactly life doesnt go on forever. What if one of the childs eldest relatives died? They couldnt go out and just buy another, they would have to explain.

[mazie]

I'm with you 4get. I'd tell the child.

[anneasquith]

oh, mum to be, how are you ?

[mazie]

4get...how much longer have you got to go ?

[Peter Pedant]

well, Charlotte Bronte (yes her) having taken Anne to Scarborough where she died a few days later, wrote that she could not bring herself to tell the father (Rev Patrick Bronte, for it was he and a priest to boot) and so buried her alone.

alone as in without other family

which raises the interesting question of what she did when she returned to Haworth Parsonage and whether she HAD hired an Anne Bronte look alike
and what the conversation was.

Odd lot those Brontes

[4getmenot]

mmm interesting pete. and am fine apart from the aching. Have psd but got physio next week. I started my maternity last week so you may see alot more of me. :-)

[gness]

Hi.4g...hope you are well and blooming. x
When my little one's goldfish died I told her and to make her feel better I carved a new fish from a carrot and put it in a clear plastic bag with a few weeds and bits of gravel. If she shook the bag it looked like a goldfish flopping about. She went through the hole in the hedge to show the very elderly man next door.
Being shortsighted, he peered at what he thought was a sickly goldfish and said it didn't look well.
Her response was to put her hand in the bag, grab the carrotfish and eat it.
First I knew was when he came tottering through the hole in the hedge shouting...Gness, come quick...little Gness has eaten her fish.

[magsmay]

Children deal with death remarkable well and its a good idea to get them used to the inevitable with an animal rather than a grandparent.

[Canary42]

Seems like I'm in the minority of one - just as well I've never had any kids :-(

[magsmay]

Canary - its wierd really -you try to wrap them in cotton wool and keep them from the nasty things in life - then when something nasty happens like the death of a pet they are full of questions and want to arrange funerals and things -i've never had one of my four children cry over the death of a pet -even when the rabbit got eaten by the dog and only its tail was left - they buried the tail with full military honours !

[Frank97]

I think you should tell the child the truth, to this day I'm still wondering if the dog that died when I was a child will ever come back from his holiday or how the budgies kept getting out of their cage in the night.

[4getmenot]

ha ha excellent gness!

[Jubz]

It's always a good idea to be truthful with a child when a pet dies, its life and a good way to learn that nothing lives forever. We had fish when the children were small and if one died we put it in an envelope and buried it in the garden. We would say a few goodbyes and then bury it and place a stone over the top.

[netibiza]

No I have never told my child that I replaced her goldfish when it died. She 22yrs old when it died, so I went to the petshop and hunted through loads of fish until there was a similar one, the assistant couldn't understand why it had to be a particular one, but my daughter never knew to this day.

[netibiza]

I told her about the dead cats, the mice, the budgies so she knew about death, it's just that she looked after this fish for so long, that when she moved away I killed it when changing the water as the council had put flouride in it, and that did it for the fish. it died a couple of years later when she changed the water, and that was OK.

[sara3]

my daughter's goldfish (Kylie) died, and ended up in the bin while she was at nursery (aged 4). I told her the truth, but did say I'd buried her in the garden. she wanted to see the grave so I had to start mumbling about "not quite sure where it is.. " and "it's raining.. "

she said, "you could have just thrown her in the bin!"

[2sp_]

I would tell her too.

Our beloved spaniel had to be put to sleep back in January and we let #1 (she's nearly 3) say goodbye and explained after that she had died and wouldn't be coming back.

She took it really well. In fact every now and then she'll say "Mummy and Daddy are sad, the spaniel (she called her that as often as her real name!) has gone. She had a sore belly, but it's all better now."

Not quite true, but she seems happy with her own little explanation.

Death is as much a part of life as birth. By hiding it away you make it mysterious and can cause them to be scared by it growing up.