How to tell a three year old his rabbit is dead?

His rabbit died suddenly and we don't know why it died. How do I tell him that he's dead, he loves his rabbit?!How to tell a three year old his rabbit is dead?
Tell him the truth. Use child appropriate language and avoid platitudes such as ';the bunny went to sleep'; or ';the bunny will be your heart always';. Children are very literal thinkers and things like this will be taken very literally. Saying the bunny went to sleep could make a child afraid to go to sleep because he might die too. Saying the bunny is in his heart will make him think the bunny is really physically there.





Children this age see death as a temporary or reversible situation, so don't be surprised if you have to explain to him multiple times that the bunny is gone forever. Letting him participate in burying the bunny could help provide closure to him. Our cat died when my daughter was two and I let her draw pictures on the card board box we buried him in to tell him good bye. That seemed to help her a lot. When the question of where he went came up we could talk about the pictures we drew and how we buried his body in the back yard. We are religious, so I followed that up with an explanation that his spirit went to live with Heavenly Father. You could also incorporate your religious beliefs in a likewise manner.How to tell a three year old his rabbit is dead?
I think it's best to just explain it to him in farily simple terms. ';Honey, (insert name of rabbit here) is gone'; I don't know what your faith is as far as what happens to animals when they die, but all he's going to understand at that age is that his bunny is gone. He will probably be very sad, but I think if you do get him a new bunny it will buffer the blow. But I don't think it's fair to just replace it, he deserves some explaination and consolation.





Btw, if you do decide to get a new bunny, I recomend Himilayans. I was in rabbit 4H for years, and they are such a sweet breed! =]
If you're a religious family you can explain that his rabbit has gone to live with Heavenly Father and Jesus, and that he's happy and having a fun time playing in Heaven.





If you have some relatives that have died, you can tell him that his rabbit when to go keep Grandma/Grandpa/whomever to keep them company so they could have a pet too.





Other than that, I don't have a ton of great ideas about shadowing death. My 2 year old has grown up knowing that batteries die; they stop working. So, he also understood what happened when our fish died, that they stopped working and we had to get rid of them.
apparantly yo are supposed to be honest, my daughter was 2 when my 2 1/2 monthold baby died and we avoided the truth, the caused heralot of confusion in thinking her brother was coming back. people who i spoke to who are trained in this area told me we should have been honest in the 1st place, the same applies to pets.
When my 3 year old daughters fish died we told her the truth and instead of flushing it we buried it(don't know why we buried a fish, but we did) Anyway, we were honest and told her he was in heaven and she had a ton of questions but she was ok after a while but we did end up replacing it with another fish.
Never lie to a child. Avoid the question? Sometimes. Make the answer child-friendly? Sure. Lying? Never. You just tell him, because that's a natural part of life that even children should understand.





He may cry periodically for a few days, but he will get over it, and I promise that it will not leave any lasting negative affects.
Some people consider lies, but I think you should explain/show the cycle of life. Explain, to him that the rabbit's cycle had gone. Say, that his rabbit will always be with him in his heart.





Tianaxxx
wow, hard one here. poor little guy. gosh he's too young, tell him a little white lie and try to distract him with something else, and maybe when he's older you'll tell him what really happened. or maybe he'll figure it out on his own.
you don't. you replace it.





i know it sounds kinda mean but it is way to hard to explain it to such a young child or to have their heart broken.
I think three is abit young for such harsh truths. Tell a nice lie and then distract him.