Losing a pet is difficult for anyone, but children may take longer to grieve and get over the loss than adults do. A small amount of depression, acting out, or gloominess can be expected, and should go away. Longer periods or abnormal activity following loss should be addressed by the parent, a counselor or minister, or a grief counselor. Warning signs of severe or prolonged grief will vary depending on the child's age, relationship with the pet, emotional maturity, circumstances involved with the death, and so on.
Others find that children are far more resilient that adults in coping with death. Because they have a limited ability to understand chronology, unless faced with something quite traumatic, they are usually able to process grief, accept the issue, and sometimes with a little help or explanation, simply move through the issue with very little scaring. Children are exposed to many more issues via mass media, advertising, schoolyard conversation, video games, graphic novels, and even observation than ever before. It is not unusual for a child to see, for instance, carnage from war or natural disasters on the nightly news. The events of 9/11 are a perfect example of a direct and indirect affect a traumatic social event had on children. Additionally, children process traumatic situations differently, and manifest differing symptoms regarding that stress (Alat, 2002).. Further research and means of exploring non-invasive ways to handle traumatic situations with children must be continually addressed and as cultural norms and values change, so should the manner in which caregivers focus specific and identifiable means to help children cope. Teachers may be among the first adults to note symptoms of grief and stress in a child, and represent an important part of a child's support system. Further research and resources, then, should be given to that segment of care giving, allowing the benefits of a common experience to enrich the lives of the child's peers as well. At times, it is as simple as allowing the child to read about death at an age appropriate book, and understand they are not alone in their feelings (Pardeck and Markward, 1995).
Too,...
Researchers have found that the loss of a pet after two weeks and eight weeks revealed grief scores that are similar to those reported after losing a human relationship ( Noonan, 2008). There have been reports of adults grieving the loss of a pet with the same grief reaction to losing a human attachment relationship. This includes exhibiting a searching behavior, obsessive rumination of the events leading up to the pet's death, thoughts of previous significant losses both animal and human, and fears of losing control. Thus it is believed that losing a pet is very similar to losing a human attachment relationship. Again, depending on the developmental stage, the overall effects are typically serious during the initial explanation, but amazingly, the child is resilient and recovers quickly (Field, Orsini, Gavish, and Packman, 2009)..
REFERENCES
Alat, K. (2002). "Traumatic Events and Children: How Early Childhood Educators
Can Help." Childhood Education. 79 (1): 2.
Bjorklund, D. 2006-08-10 "Spot Died Last Week: Children's Picture Books About
the Death of a Pet" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American
Sociological Association, Montreal Convention Center, Montreal, Quebec,
Canada.
Field, N.P., et.al. (2009). "Role of Attachment in Response to Pet Loss." Death Studies.
33(4): 334-355.
Kubler-Ross, E. (1997). On Children and Death. Scribner.
Mercurio, M. And a. McNamee. "Healing Words, Healing Hearts." Childhood Education.
82 (3): 153.
Moser, a. And D. Melton. (1996). Don't Despair on Thursdays!: The Children's Grief-
Management Book. Landmark.
Noonan, Ellen. (2008). "People and pets." Psychodynamic Practice. 14(4): 395-407.
Pardeck, J. And M. Markward. (1995). "Bibliotherapy: Using Books to Help Children
With Problems." Early Childhood Development…
