Pets can bring us a lot of love and joy into our life but there's a risk too.
We're here today to help you help your kids deal with the loss of a pet. I think
we have to start with the obvious thing. And that is that nobody gets out of this
alive. -Not even our pets. -And you know what? We
can... We can joke about that a little bit. We can have some fun with that idea but
it's a hard thing when it happens. And Vicki, you and I have had to say goodbye
to some pets before. And you know, I'm kind of a SAP. Vicki knows this about me.
Our first dog, Crystal was with us for 14 and a half years. She raised our
kids. -Yeah. -This is that sweet soul that our kids would go to when they couldn't
talk to us, they couldn't talk to anybody else but they would go to Crystal. And
pour out their little hearts and she was just so sweet. And when a loss like that
happens, it is significant. -It's very, very real for them. Let that happen. -As if it's
up to us, right? -Yeah. -To let it happen. I mean, it's going to happen. When you
invite a pet into your home, you're setting yourself up for this. -Yeah. -Okay?
You can avoid the pain if you avoid the pet. -Exactly. -But there's some huge
downsides to that. We'll acknowledge then that death happens. And I've got a friend
who's an undertaker. I thought that was an old-west term or something. I have a
lot of interesting friends. He's an undertaker. A funeral director. AAnd he
said to me something that has always stuck with me. He said, "Paul, talking about
death won't kill you." Okay, good to know. Because we're hesitant sometimes to even
talk about it. Guess what? Your kids starting at about age 5, sometimes
earlier, sometimes later are going to come to terms with
mortality. They're going to pick up on it either through the media. -It's going to
happen. -They know so we don't deny to our kids that it's going to happen. We
acknowledge that it will. -And that brings about the whole idea is... It's, we really
want to avoid making promises we can't keep you can't. You cannot promise that
nothing will ever happen to Rover, you know? That's not in your control. And it's
not true. -So, what if your child says, "Well, what if Rover dies?" -Then you talk about
what if. "We'll be really sad." -Wait, can we say that? -Yeah. -Yes, we can.
Because guess how you're going to feel when they're over dies? You're going to feel sad.
Let's not deny those feelings. We have to create some space for those feelings to
happen. Now, that leads to the second tip. Because it's an acknowledgement of where
the pain comes from. Let's help our children to see the connection between
the love and the relationship that we have with our pet and the pain and loss
that we feel at their passing. You don't get to feel the pain in the loss unless
you have the love and the relationship. -Right. -It's what sets you up for it.
So, we acknowledge it. And in doing so, what if we could help our kids also to
understand that they're not wrong about how they're feeling. They're feeling...
They're feeling that because of the love that they had. Think about for yourself.
Would you give up an entire relationship just to avoid the pain when that
relationship comes to an end? Have you ever attended a funeral? And did you ever
think it that funeral know, "Oh, I wish I never would have known that person." Or can you
just allow yourself to feel the pain? So, we're going to help our kids to do the
same thing. And draw that connection for them. "The reason sweetie that you're
feeling this is because of the love that's in your heart." -"Good times that you
had together." You know, this reminds me, when we lost our dog,
Crystal. One of our son's was living overseas at the time and we talked. You know,
the first one is go ahead and talk about death. We had some discussions knowing
that probably our sweet dog wouldn't be there when he came home. So, he knew.
And so in preparation for it, he said, "Mom, when it happens. We just ride on the
outside of the letter, This is a hard letter. I'll know what the letter has.
That way, I can have time to process it and be ready before I open it and
receive the news." And I think that's perfectly fine. Let's give them, give our
children the space to feel whatever they're going to feel in that loss. And
talk about it. -Now, that brings up another important point, Vicki because we can
create intentionally some space for that kind of a feeling. As a parent, when your
child suffers a significant loss like this, treat it as if your best friend
just lost their parent. -Right. Now, this is tricky. I remember, I don't even know...
Do you know what was squishy? There were... One of our... Something from science...
-It was a little shellfish kind of a thing. -Squishy. I don't even know what it was.
-Right. -But it was important to him and when it passed, Paul was so good. He
handled it really well. It gave him time and they talked about as anything he
wanted to say and and then they buried it. But you know, it would be really easy
that's where those ones have been really easy to just kind of flush away. -Well,
yeah. And you know what? Vicki, I almost did because my inclination was, "Oh,
that thing died in its stinky. Let's just toss it out." Well, he was kind of attached
to it. And I'm glad that that we were able to identify that soon enough to not
make the mistake of just flushing it or trying to slip it through you know,
without him noticing. They're going to notice. You see these sitcoms all the
time where people are trying to replace the pet. You know, pretend like nothing
happened. -And that never goes well. Just watch any sitcom. -Really? I mean,
watch the sitcoms and realize that your kids are smarter than that. So, we're
going to create some space. Now, what that might mean is that you get to take a
little time off work or whatever else it is that you're doing... -Okay, we're going to
carve out front right after dinner, we're going to carve out this time. -To do what?
What if you hold a funeral? Some, people that doesn't even occur to
them. "Let's have a funeral for our pet." Why wouldn't you? Follow your gut on that.
You have an instinct that maybe something needs to happen.
Yes, formalize it. Create an event, an experience there now the best funerals
have some laughter. Have you noticed and some tears. Make room for both of
those. And it's really healthy for the kids if you can encourage them to talk
about funny things they remember from that pet. And you'll have some. In fact,
you might have some videos up on YouTube of your pet doing some goofy stuff. And
if you don't, then there's others you can find here. -I love... We go back to the place
that you you provide a space for them to do that. An intentional space. And
we've had I remember when a pet Parakeet passed away. Paul helped my daughter you
know, get ready and had a little box I think and a little space. And he
offered her, "Is there something you want to say about the birdie?" -Mhm.
-And I don't think she did at the time. I think she didn't really know what she
wanted to say. And so, we didn't force it. Don't force it but we allowed that space.
He shared some things, I shared some things. And giving them that time in that
space is really important. -Vicki mentioned the Box, okay? Now, we're getting
into some detail here but maybe this will be helpful to you. It's a curative
or healthy or healing thing for someone to assist in the preparations for
retiring that little pet. We do this as humans too. We get involved in different
ways. In funeral, rights and passages. And allowing your child to participate as
much or as little as they like. So, keeping it in in choice. "Sweetie, do you
want to put your little bird into the box or do you want me to?" Okay. And then
pause. Just give them a minute. Okay? And it's not important who does it.
But having having them experience some choice there. "Now would you like to hold
that box for a minute before we say a few words or..."
You don't have to get all formal about it. But invoking that kind of choice and
participation is really going to help. -That kind of leads us right into our
fifth tip and that is to create some sort of a memorial for the pet. Will
there be a plaque? Saving a tag? -Mm-hmm. You know, whatever you think would help
the child remember the pet. And be okay with talking about the pet. You know, we
still talk about crystal all the time. And she's been gone 7 years. -We did
create a memorial and we have a little plaque with her picture on it. And we
composed some kind of poetic little rhymes that go along with some
of the things that we remember about her. -Yeah. -You can do this fairly easily
nowadays with digital media and whatnot. Just to create something that gives them
something that they can remember the pet by and acknowledge and honor the
relationship that they had. -You know we go back to why would we even do this. And
I think one of the most important things that we we just can't stress enough is
we are all going to have to deal with mortality in this lifetime. We're going
to lose someone we love. Whether it be a parent, a friend, a sibling, a co-worker.
We're going to lose people in our lives. And one of the great way to have kind of
an introductory to deal with those feelings. There's a lot of
feelings that come up when you lose someone you love.
Even if it is an animal. And so, then through dealing with losing
a pet, you have that opportunity to kind of practice and introduce yourself to
how you're going to handle loss. -You've got this. As a conscious, positive parent,
you've got this. And we've got your back. Vicki and I've put together some
resources for you. If you haven't checked it out yet, please visit parenting
powerup.com where there are some amazing resources to help you in the
most important job in the world.