For most people the family pet is the first death they ever encounter, and how it is handled tends to stay with them for a very long time afterwards. Heavenly Pastures provides pet cremations for households across St Helens and the surrounding towns, and parents ask us about this more than almost anything else. To be plain about the practical side first, we hold nothing in St Helens itself. The crematorium sits at Burscough, near Ormskirk, and the service travels to you rather than the other way round.
What to Actually Say
The instinct is to soften it, and softening it is where most of the trouble starts. Children take language literally for longer than adults expect, and the gentle phrases we reach for cause a surprising amount of confusion.
The Words That Cause Problems
Telling a small child their pet was put to sleep can make bedtime frightening for months. Saying the animal went away invites a wait by the window that goes on far longer than anyone anticipated, and sometimes a quiet conviction that they were the reason for it. Saying the pet got poorly and died, without more, can make a child’s own cold feel like a serious matter. Plain words carry less risk than kind ones. Died, and is not coming back, and it did not hurt, said calmly, gives a child something solid to stand on even though it sounds blunt written down.
Whether They Should Be There
There is no single answer and it depends far more on the individual child than on age. What we would say is that children excluded from the whole thing frequently feel it keenly, and some are still slightly cross about it in adulthood. Being asked, and being allowed to decide for themselves, matters more than which way they choose. If a child does want to be present, tell them beforehand exactly what will happen and what the animal will look like, because the unprepared version is what frightens people rather than the event itself. It is also entirely acceptable for a child to change their mind at the door, and worth saying so in advance so that they know the option exists.
How Children Grieve, Which Is Not How Adults Do
Expect it to come and go in a way that looks almost callous. A child may sob for ten minutes, then ask what is for tea, then be perfectly cheerful for two days, then fall apart at bedtime on Thursday. This is normal and it is not shallowness. Younger children often need the same facts repeated many times over weeks, asking the identical question on Monday and again on Thursday as though it had never been answered, which is exhausting and is also precisely how they process it. Answering it the same way each time, without impatience, does more good than any single careful conversation. Older children and teenagers frequently go quiet instead and grieve somewhere you cannot see, which can be mistaken for indifference and very rarely is.
Doing Something Together
It is worth telling the school, particularly with a younger child, because a teacher who knows why a normally cheerful seven year old is tearful at lunchtime can handle it far better than one who does not. Children respond well to having something to do. Drawing the pet, writing something, choosing where the ashes will go, or picking a photograph all give shape to a feeling they cannot yet name. The Remembrance section of this website exists for exactly that purpose, and you are warmly welcome to put up a photograph there together with something your child would like said. Other families have left their own tributes on it, and children often find real comfort in seeing that theirs sits among them.
The Decision the Adults Still Have to Make
Alongside all of that sits a practical choice. An individual cremation service means the animal is cremated on their own and their ashes come home. A communal cremation service means they are cremated with others and nothing is returned. Where children are involved, families quite often choose to have ashes back specifically because it gives everybody something to gather around, though plenty do not and manage perfectly well. Both are set out with costs on the pet cremation price list.
Smaller Animals Count
A hamster, a rabbit or a guinea pig is very often the animal a child was closest to, and adults sometimes underplay that loss out of an instinct to keep things in proportion. Children rarely see the proportion. Our small pets individual cremation service page explains what is possible with the smallest animals, including that ashes can be returned, which surprises a lot of parents.
Getting Here and Getting to You
Collection comes to houses throughout St Helens, and to your veterinary practice if that is where things happened, arranged around your household rather than around us, and the travel-time bands are set out on the areas we cover page. Bringing your pet to Burscough yourself is equally fine, and some families find that including the children in that journey helps them.
If You Want Advice First
Ring 01704 776976 before you tell them, if that would help. We have talked a lot of parents through this and we do not find the question odd. If you would sooner write it down, the contact form comes to us directly.