And if folks are worried about a six-year-old internalizing blame, I used to volunteer with 5-to-7 year olds and got a lot of experience with talking them through upsetting experiences. My suggestion is to ask the kid, “If you were playing with a ball at school, and another child ran after you and punched you so they could take your ball away, who did something mean and wrong: them or you?” Pretty much any kid will recognize the injustice in that situation and will say it was the other kid. Then you follow with, “Brother’s dog is that child being mean on the playground. You were just playing nicely by yourself, and Brother’s dog suddenly attacked you.”

Putting things into an analogy the child will understand really helps them contextualize these kinds of things.