When I was growing up our family always had pets – multiple pets! And I just couldn’t understand why some of my friends didn’t have a pet dog or cat. What did they do for fun? Who protected them at night? It was only later on in life that I realized how much my pets meant to me, and how much they taught and prepared me for my adult life.
I can think of many reasons why pets are a very good idea for children, but I have narrowed it down to the 3 most important reasons:
Responsibility
It is never too early to learn about responsibility. As a child a was never really given ‘chores’ to do. I was lucky enough be have the freedom to be a child – to play. Though, there was always one thing that was predominant in our household, RESPONSIBILITY. Our responsibilities were not chores or work, they were part of life.
These are your animals, and you are responsible for them. They need to be fed, brushed or cleaned, and they need your attention. As an 8-year-old child it is not hard to do the fun things like, giving the animals attention, but the real lesson comes in when a child understands that a pet needs to be fed every day.
Care
Caring for an animal is quite different to being responsible for an animal. I have heard some horror stories about the way that animals are treated by some adults. In most cases, this sort of mistreatment towards animals could have been avoided if care was taught at an early age.
As a child, my pets were my friends, not just animals. They were and still are treated as a member of the family. Developing a good and strong relationship between animal and human is a special thing and not very hard to achieve. If you care for your pets’ wellbeing (health and feelings), there is nothing that can come between the two of you.
There is more to life than the digital universe
I know that growing up in this day and age is very different to what it was like growing up in the 80’s and 90’s. There is more technology to conveniently entertain our children why we run the house. But we are relying more and more on technology that we are losing touch with the world around us.
It is so important for our children to be using and exercising their imagination instead of staring blankly at a well-lit screen. Pets are the perfect form of positively stimulating entertainment. Teach them to entertain themselves by playing with and caring for their pets. With a little bit of effort from your side, your children can have years of fun with their pets instead of about 40 minutes of mind-numbing entertainment from a screen.
3 easy activities to help create awareness and love between child and pet:
- Learning to feed your pet every day is one of the best activities to begin with. This sort of daily routine teaches amazing responsibility.
- Brushing your pet is another great way to create a lasting bond between child and pet.
- Teaching your pet tricks or obedience is the best way for child and pet to get to know each other’s boundaries and capabilities.
It is my personal opinion that a dog is the best first pet for a child. From 3 years old is perfect time for a child to start learning responsibility and care. They are cognitively capable of understanding what they are doing and able to start learning what is right and what is wrong.