A pet brings not only turmoil to any home but also great happiness. For a family with a child, a beloved furry friend can be even more than that. Whether you choose a cat, dog, or other animal, having a pet in the family will help your child become calmer and learn many skills.
Pets can indeed provide therapeutic help to children. Here are a few options for how having a pet provides your kid’s brain boost.
Pets help reduce anxiety and stress
Children often feel this anxiety on a different level. Most often, this happens because of problems in school. Kids feel stressed when they can’t cope with their homework. One of the ways out is to use services like EssayShark that will help you to do your assignment. By using help services, you can feel relief and avoid stress caused by numerous tasks.
Pets can also help kids get rid of stress. The calm demeanor and unconditional love of dogs can cause a measurable reduction in stress. Giving a child a pet is one of the best ideas you can come up with. Animals, by nature, have an unbiased view of all living beings and are capable of deep empathy, which is why they are ideal companions for children who have stress caused by study.
Pets provide friendly communication
Pets help children who have difficulty making connections with peers, which can make them feel lonely and isolated from society. With their pet, the child can talk about anything and anytime.
Pets help keep you physically active
Being active can be both a stress reliever and a mood enhancer. Pets encourage children to be physically active and spend time outdoors, which is good for a healthy lifestyle.
Pets help develop social skills
Studies have shown that pets improve the social behavior of children.
Pets will teach responsibility
Pet care can help a child create their own schedule, including time for bathing or feeding the pet and time for them to play and have fun together. Such a daily routine encourages the formation of good habits and skills, such as the ability to make plans, then concentrate and stick to them.
Pets help in specific situations
A fully trained therapy dog can be taught behaviors such as helping with panic attacks. There are even charitable organizations that train dogs for children with special needs.
Pets make children kinder and healthier
Practicing veterinarians confirm that pet owners do appear to be more relaxed. They notice that the breeders who come to the appointment have a much calmer and anxiety-free voice than their acquaintances who do not have pets.
It has long been noticed that when a person strokes an animal, the level of cortisol (stress hormone) in their body decreases, and the level of oxytocin (love hormone), on the contrary, increases. As a result, people become more relaxed and happier.
Pets have a beneficial effect on children. If a child is in contact with animals from an early age, they develop such qualities as compassion, respect for others, kindness, and trust in the world around them.
It is not uncommon for parents to try to keep their children away from animals in order to protect them from germs and infections. However, contact with dogs and cats, according to a study, can prevent a child from developing asthma and allergies. In particular, the presence of animals in the house can reduce the sensitivity of children to wool, dust mites, and pollen from flowering plants. At the same time, it is important that pets are next to the child from the first months of their life.
Animals at home are a huge plus, and we hope that in the future, they will be kept and cared for in offices, cafes, and other public places, as this reduces stress levels for both employees and guests.
How to prepare for getting a pet
A pet in a family is the responsibility of adults. Even if children dream of a pet for several years, the final decision should remain with the parents: they will be responsible for the animal. The lifestyle of an adult without a pet and with it differs in much the same way as the life of a childless person differs from the life of parents with many children.
Before you get a dog, evaluate your options. Keep in mind that you are making this decision for a long time, not for a year or two. Every day, the dog must be taken out for a walk at least two times. True, over time, you yourself can’t live without these walks: for some, this will be a good motivation to keep yourself in shape and organize your time.
The best thing to do for a dog in the first weeks after appearing in your home is to leave it alone. It will sleep, eat and experience the stress associated with leaving her comfort zone, getting used to a new place, people, and rules. The requirements for the animal should be reduced as much as possible. If possible, it would be nice to take a vacation to be together for a few days. You may need to take them outside more often or teach them to stay home alone. Be sure to remove everything superfluous from the floor and from those places where the animal can reach – from the table, from the window sills. Protect access to wires, especially if you are getting a puppy. In general, prepare the house as you would before the arrival of an active toddler.
Experienced pet owners tend to have a good understanding of pets’ language of communication. And they can interpret not only the behavior of their friend but also the signals of other people’s pets. In this regard, interacting with animals is similar to interacting with children: the more of it in your life, the better you do. Those who are just going to get a dog should familiarize themselves with the specialized literature.
If you can’t get a pet, visit a shelter
You can communicate with dogs and cats in municipal and private shelters. There you can choose the animal with which you want to walk around the surrounding area. Visiting the shelter does not oblige you to take a pet with you. Only some have the opportunity to keep an animal at home, and shelter owners treat this with understanding.
