parenting thru pet loss

[LdyBluNH@aol]

first off yes it is a wooly bear caterpillar we're talking about

while its not catastrophic to me or to you; to my daughter this was everythign!!!

we can't have pets and this was her outlet for nuturing. all her stuffed animals and babies took a break while she had him to focus on

so its a sudden, unexpected loss - we put him out last night and he's gone without a trace

my heart breaks because i know she'll have this lesson many times over in her life....

i want to fix it - lets get a fish etc etc etc. i want to take the hurt away. i am NOT doing this because it is a lesson and she has to have her feelings, not deny them.

so what do i do? how do i support her????

[Piglet68]

Moving this to Childhood Years (requested by OP)...

[guestmama9924]

Oh! We went through this with 'Lizzy" the lizard. We had a little blessing and talked about pets being free in both body and spirit and how the time is short to us, but long to the pet.
When our dog passed, we planted a Mango tree in memorial, right next to the girls 2 birth trees. Every once and a while my oldest girls will decorate the tree with ribbon, or put a decoration near the base.
Perhaps a memory tree in the yard? And it can represent all her future pets too, and she can decorate it and it will be always special. Basically transferring the abstract loss into a physical memorial? I would definitely suggest replacing with a memorial and not another animal as we want to avoid the message of "replacable disposable pets". Let the next pet be for the joy of that new pet rather than replacement.

Good luck. They are SO tender at this age!!