Parental Filter

Do you allow your children to have pets? What do you think they learn from having pets?

Yes we have always had pets. It teaches children about responsibility, about being gentle and not hurting the animal and also it gives them their first understanding of death.

I think pets are good for children too. Even a small child can feel that they have responsibility for something such as checking that the animal always has water. Of course it is always the responsibility to oversee the pet care and to ensure that the animal has vet care when necessary.

I think it's good for kids if they can do the "pet chores" that are assigned to them. We only got our spoiled little furbaby cat 5 years ago and before that my daughter didn't want a pet... now they're inseparable.

I think that the parent has to be responsible for the animal and ensure that the child is taught to handle it carefully and take care of it correctly. We have had Hamsters, a mouse, guinea pigs and rabbits as well as dogs and cats. I have become fond of all of them because I took a close interest in making sure they were OK.

I like all pets but I wouldn't have another mouse, she was a lovely little thing but even if cleaned out every day mice smell.

We always had cats, and the kids grew up with them. The cats knew they had to put their claws away when it came to the kids, and that the kids had to treat them with respect and not hurt them.
When my kids were about four and two, they were in the bathtub, and when I turned my back for a second, one of our cats decided to jump up on the edge of the bathtub. Either the cat slipped or the kids "helped" her into the water, but what should I see something resembling a huge wet rat running past me. The kids were laughing like crazy, and not one of them had the slightest scratch on them. Cats and kids are really good together.

Jasper our cat showed amazing restraint with my son when he was about 2. You know how they go through a posting phase, my daughter posted a very sticky sandwich into the video recorder but my son went one better. He spotted a slit under the cat's tail and he had every intention of posting a Lego brick. I saw it all in slow motion, I just couldn't get there fast enough. The cat went straight up in the air and left the room without touching the ground. My son was untouched, but it was a couple of years before the cat dared turn his back on him!

LOL!!!Although it wasn't a laughing matter for poor Jasper!
Lots of people say that cats are uncaring, cold, and disloyal, but it just isn't true. I remember the cats sleeping with the kids (they never did, unless the kids were getting ill, and the cats usually knew it before anyone else). One of our cats even got between one of my kids and a wandering dog and scared the dog away with a big hiss. I don't know if the dog meant harm to my kid (it was long gone before I got outside), but just the fact that our cat sought to protect our kid meant the world to me.

It is good for children to learn how to to handle animals and how to treat them properly, but they gain so much more than that because a real attachment can develop between them.