Pets and Children

Children get very attached to pets and watching a young child and a puppy or a kitten growing up together and helping each other is one of the great pleasures of family life.

However, there is much more to it than that. Pets help children to learn the important skill of communication without words and they also instil in them a respect for nature that can be very valuable. They serve as a very useful introduction to the experiences of life and death, and the sciences of biology, natural history and reproduction. Indeed, the study of pets now plays an important part in many different areas of the National Curriculum. Children are also able to learn about the responsibilities of ownership including feeding, grooming, exercising and care in ill health. Owning a pet can be a very useful social asset and help in developing self-confidence and friendships.

A recent study in Cambridge compared two groups of children, one of them pet owning and the other not. The main indications were quite clear; in pet owning families, the relationship between children and their parents was better and this led to a happier family atmosphere. In addition, the greater the number of pets owned, the better the child’s social competence.

A study of cats in Switzerland took a different standpoint and looked at the human-cat relationship from the cat’s point of view. It seems that cats behaved differently towards different members of the family – boys, girls and adults. It also showed that the relationship between a child and a cat is markedly different from that between a child and a dog – so here again, it seems that there are very good psychological reasons for a child owning more than one pet.

Children can often find a common interest with older people through pets. The elderly can teach the young a lot about pet care and where there is an age difference which can easily be 50 years, the love for the pet helps to bridge the ‘generation gap’.