Remembering My Pet: A Kid's Own Spiritual Workbook for When a Pet Dies

Honest, caring words and hands-on activities to help kids accept and grow through the loss of a beloved pet.

Why did this happen? How do I feel? What can I do? What happens next?

The death of a pet is often a child's first encounter with grief. How your child learns to cope through this experience may affect his or her attitude into adulthood. Drawing on concepts from psychology and a broad multifaith perspective, this supportive workbook provides a sensitive and practical resource that will help children ages 7 to 13 cope with the death of a beloved animal. Children can write, draw, read, create and express feelings via concrete, hands-on activities including:

• Becoming a Memory Detective to piece together clues to remember their pet
• Planning a memorial service and making a pet memorial
• Recording photo memories of their pet
• Honoring their pet's memory by giving to others

Open and gentle, this book will help your child--and you as the parent--understand difficult concepts and communicate deep feelings as your child grows through this personal season of mourning.

Nechama Liss-Levinson, PhD, is a psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice and author of When a Grandparent Dies: A Kid's Own Remembering Workbook for Dealing with Shiva and the Year Beyond; Talking to Children about Death; and Remembering My Pet: A Kid's Own Spiritual Workbook for When a Pet Dies, as well as many articles on developmental milestones in the Jewish family, and the emotional impact of death and illness on children and adults. She lives on Long Island, New York, with her husband and two daughters.

Nechama Liss-Levinson PhD is available to speak on the following topics:

• Musings, Milestones and Mayhem at Midlife
• Not Your Bubby's Bubby: Being a Modern Jewish Grandmother
• Talking to Children about Death
• When a Grandparent Dies: Helping the Whole Family to Cope
• Whose Bat Mitzvah Is It Anyway? Coming of Age and Coming Together

Rev. Molly Phinney Baskette, MDiv, is senior minister of First Congregational Church of Somerville, United Church of Christ, in Somerville, Massachusetts, and has worked with children in crisis in the United States and abroad.

Lynn L. Caruso is an inspiring educator, writer, parent/child ad-vocate and mother of three children. A contributing writer to Mothering magazine, her work has been published in many other national journals and magazines. Caruso is also the editor of the first-of-its-kind Blessing the Animals: Prayers and Ceremonies to Celebrate God's Creatures, Wild and Tame and Honoring Motherhood: Prayers, Ceremonies & Blessings (both SkyLight Paths).