Is there any real reason you can’t be honest with your child?
The idea of secretly replacing flowers, toys, fish, etc always seemed a bit dishonest.
I’m sure you think I’m callous but things break and die and it doesn’t always get easier when you get older.
The idea was never to secretly replace it. I fully intended to tell her what happened and show here the flower that is now a 1’ tall stalk vs. what was a 6.5’ flower with 8 blooms and 3 ready to open. I am willing to replace her flower because she has taken such good care of it and deserves to be praised and rewarded for being so responsible about it.
I still hold out some hope that she will brush this whole episode off and deal with it gracefully, but I find it hard to expect that out of her and am looking at this with reasonable expectations - that she won’t be happy.