Pets die, they disappear, they go on to new homes, as service animals, or as rescues, in each case the child who loves that pet experiences a profound loss. Mourning is a normal response to the loss of a pet. Mourning is a process, that includes several distinct stages, which, confusingly, do not happen in any specific order, nor is their duration predictable.

“Mourning is the entire process of separating from the person (or pet) who has died and adapting to the loss.” 1

Some Definitions:
From Webster’s Dictionary

• Grief: noun intense emotional suffering caused by loss or misfortune
• Mourn verb: to feel or express sorrow
• Mourning: n. the actions or feelings of expressing grief

Mourning is the process by which reality takes the form of memory and replaces hope. Depending on the child’s age at the time when the pet dies, the child may understand that death means that there is no hope that the pet will return. When a pet disappears, and the family searches for that pet, the child may hold out hope that the pet will return. Depending on the child’s developmental age at the time of the disappearance, grief may linger and mourning be incomplete for a long time, or until the pet returns. When a pet’s departure from the family is planned, such as in the case where the family members were “puppy raisers” for a service dog organization, than the puppy’s departure may anticipated. Children may begin to grieve before their pet leaves, and may be helped to find closure if they are allowed to visit their dog when s/he graduates from service training.

The stages of the mourning process, though distinct, often overlap and sometimes repeat themselves over time, before the process runs its course. The rate, pace and extent of resolution is heavily influenced by the age and developmental stage of the individual children as well as the openness and honesty of communication among family members. Children need information about their situation in amounts and levels of complexity that they can handle. Four children from one family might be experiencing four different stages of the mourning process, simultaneously.

Also, while the children are going through their grief, so are each of the parents, at his own pace, with her own quotients of pain and sadness.

Children are likely to feel more helpless than their parents because they have little actual control or power to influence the outcome of the crisis the family is experiencing. They may, therefore, struggle for power in other and inappropriate aspects of relationships.

Ages and stages of development in relation to how children mourn.
Children under the age of three react to separation, loss and other major changes in their environment. Because they lack the language skills to express themselves, one is apt to see their reactions in body language, posture, ability to be calmed or soothed, changes in appetite or sleep patterns.

1. Preschool (ages 3-5) Death means living under different circumstances, like going on a trip from which you return
2. Latency (ages 6-8) Children know others will die, but they believe themselves immune. Children at this age want information that will make them feel safe:
3. Preadolescent (ages 9-12) Most pre-adolescents have an adult understanding of death, they know that death is permanent, irreversible, and universal.
4. Adolescent (ages 12-adult) Despite their cognitive capacity to understand death, adolescents feel invincible and immortal. They often engage in high-risk behavior….they seem to need to live on the edge between life and death in order to make sure they are alive and living to the fullest. The impact of a death or other loss can threaten their feelings and dreams of the future.
   

Four tasks children work through as they mourn:2

1. Understanding what caused the loss
2. Grieving or experiencing the painful feelings associated with the loss
3. Commemorating the value of the loss
4. Going on with life by accepting and integrating the loss psychologically and emotionally within themselves.

The Stages of Grief and Mourning:3

• Shock and Denial – “no, not me”. Kids may refuse to listen to parents’ explanations, they may deny having heard or understood previous lengthy discussions.
• Rage and Anger – “Why me?!” Why did my pet die? During this stage children may be angry at every one, including themselves, or the pet whom they have lost. Children may be afraid to express their anger and may try to contain it, only to have it burst forth when least expected or at targets unrelated to the pet who has died or left. They may feel caught in a double bind fearing that if they express their anger to someone else they love, that person or pet will die or leave too. The pet may have been the child’s closest confidant, leaving the child feeling lost and abandoned.
• Bargaining – “Yes me but” -- Children tend to accept guilt or fault for the bad that happens around them – they are strongly attached to magical thinking which locks them in to a strong belief that a thought, a wish or act of their own has caused the loss they are experiencing. Children try to bargain to delay or get around a pending disaster. If a pet is to be euthanized, the child may try to delay that event. If the pet must go to another home, even if that has been anticipated from the moment the child first saw the pet, the child may try to negotiate a plan that allows the pet to stay.
• Depression – “Yes me” -- sense of resignation, defeat, helplessness and sorrow – may take the form of withdrawal, passivity, lack of interest in normal activities, school work, peer group. Regression in self-help skills, toileting, and or bedwetting may occur. Depression in children might also take the form of agitation, hyperactivity, temper outbursts, mood swings, crying jags, aggressive rejection of contact with other
• Acceptance – “This is my life” – includes normalization of life rhythms, acceptance of a new pet, resumption of normal school activities and academic performance, bringing school work up to previously attained standards, moving away from intense family focus back into the world of their peer group (age appropriately).
  Be alert to anniversary reactions even after acceptance has occurred other stages may reoccur, especially around holidays, birthdays of the child or pet, or other events of family significance.
  

You Need Help When: your child is stuck or when the intensity of his or her responses is outside the range of normal: remember, normal is a range.

• When children’s behaviors are triggering intense and powerful reaction in you which seem out of proportion to the situation, or when a child’s behavior evokes responses from you that you neither like nor respect.

• When children repeatedly ask the same question or respond in the same inappropriate manner and your best explanations have little impact on their behavior. When children’s feelings are not heard, they will repeat themselves, or escalate the intensity of their behavior until they are heard. If your best effort to hear and respond the child’s question is not breaking the pattern, you need help.
  There is no set time frame for mourning. If mourning is intense or prolonged secondary problems may arise. If the child experiences loss of friendships; a sense of defeat due to poor school or athletic performance; persistent nightmares, sleep or eating disorders; or the child simply seems overwhelmed in the course of daily it is time to get help.

• When you feel like you cannot handle what is going on. A child’s problems can become too complex or too numerous to be handled within the family. You do not have to solve everything on your own – help is available in many forms/
  

Resources for help:

• Friends
• Extended family
• Clergy
• Family doctor
• Veterinarian
• Libraries
• Mental health professionals

Footnotes:

1. Spoken by Bill Worden, quoted by Maria Trozzi in Talking With Children about Loss, page 10.
2. Talking With Children about Loss, page 10.
3. 3 The five stages of the grieving process were originally described by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying

©2002 Barbara Handelman