Death of a pet

Learn about: Death of a pet from Juli Schneiderman,...
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Death of a pet

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It’s really, really difficult to talk to a young child about the death of a pet. They are part of our everyday life, they’re a part of our daily routine. Our pets are there when we come home, when we go to bed and it’s sometimes the first brush of death that a child experiences sadly. Our son was 2.5-years-old when we had a house fire and our dog died of smoke inhalation. And we had to have that conversation with him. We got down on his level and we were crying. And we said, “It’s okay to be sad, Gwennie died protecting our home. And we can’t touch her anymore, and we can’t play with her, but we can look at videos and we can look at pictures and we can laugh about all the funny stories that we shared.” And although he doesn’t understand permanence – he’s only 2.5-years-old, he does understand that she’s not with us anymore. And I think as he gets older and does understand more, it’ll be an ongoing dialogue, which is important.
ALL PARENTS, Family Life, Family Pets

Learn about: Death of a pet from Juli Schneiderman,...

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Juli Schneiderman

Stay at Home Mom

Juli is the mother of two beautiful sons – Jordan, age four, and Dailey, age one-and-a-half.  In April of 2011, her home was destroyed in a house fire which also took the life of their beloved dog. Due to the stress caused by the fire, she ended up delivering her son Dailey by emergency c-section the same night. She and her husband Josh have recently moved back in to their rebuilt home, and are healing with the help of their sons who constantly keep them laughing.

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