How Do You Guide A Child To Move On From Pet Loss Grief? ? Self ...

When parents decide to have a pet at home, it is a decision that they usually make for the happiness of their children. For many kids, pets are not just playmates. Rather they are creatures that can make them happy, teach them how to be responsible, relieve them of daily pressures and overall serve as their good friends. Considering this, it is safe to assume that during the entire stay of a pet in any household, most of the hours are spent with children. Hence, children are likely to experience pet loss grief with the death of a pet. As a parent, it might be hard to think how you can help your kids move on from the loss. This is because you, yourself, are finding it hard to cope up. But since you are the adult, you have to take it upon yourself to give your kids some extra help.

Parents have to remember that patience is very important. Children have the tendency to bring up the topic repeatedly so be patient. Other than this, you should allow your children to work through their grief. Let them express their grief openly and let them see you express your grief as well. Always make sure that when you talk about what happened, you do it with all honesty. Also similar to what Christian counseling experts would tell you, talk about death and grief in terms children understand. Don?t use words like God took the pet or the pet is just asleep. These might lead them to develop fears such as the fear of God taking them or their loved ones away and fear of sleeping. It is also recommended to involve your children to activities pertaining to the loss. Give them permission to participate in the burial service. Allow them to have a say on how the memorial service should be carried out. If ever a child says he doesn?t want to join, don?t force him to.

Also, you should not forget that part of helping your kid cope up with the loss is to teach him that death is permanent. Further, don?t commit the mistake of immediately getting another pet to replace the lost one. This will trigger feelings of disloyalty and will also give the wrong impression that grief for a loss can be overcome by mere buying of a replacement. Pet loss grief counseling for children may not be as serious as substance abuse counseling but it needs attention just the same. Exerting effort in learning the best practices to help your kids cope up can go a long way in your kids? recovery. As always, be patient and never forget to hug and reassure your kids.

Tags: Christian counseling, pet loss grief, substance abuse counseling

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2012 at 5:34 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Source: http://selfimprovement.woodriverhall.com/uncategorized/how-do-you-guide-a-child-to-move-on-from-pet-loss-grief/

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