As much as you may not want these often-cuddly creatures, odds are that your children will at some point want pets of their own, especially if they go to other friends’ houses and see how they have pets in their households. Here we will discuss the prospect of having pets and how to ultimately decide whether your children should have them.
Pets are a great way to provide companionship to your children, especially in a household that is otherwise fairly lonesome overall. This is often the case when parents are working long hours, and the children come home to an empty house, or simply a house in which neither parent can truly engage with them after a long day of work. This is only further exacerbated for children who do not have any siblings, since they have absolutely no one to interact with if parents are not available.
This is where pets come into play – whenever you or your child comes home from work or school respectively, the family pet will be there waiting to play with whoever wants to engage with it. For a particularly busy parent, it is nice to know that you don’t have to constantly be spending time with your child when you are tired or simply not in the mood, instead giving that responsibility to a loving pet.
However, that word “responsibility” is key in this discussion, as there is significant responsibility involved when owning and raising a pet. Not only does someone have to feed the pet on a daily basis, but they also need to show it the proper love and affection on a daily basis as well. It isn’t enough for someone to engage with the pet when they want to, but rather someone needs to give the pet the necessary time and energy whenever the pet needs it! The amount of work required is often dependent on the pet itself, but in the case of dogs for example, this means walking the dog to give it the proper exercise, and even less appealing tasks such as picking up their poop.
So when it comes to deciding whether to give into your child’s desire to own a pet of their own, the key here is to determine if they are responsible enough to own one. If they can handle taking care of all the aspects of raising the pet of their choosing (again the required responsibilities depend on the pet in question), then you should definitely let them prove that they are as responsible as you believe they are. Owning a pet will hopefully not just be a fun experience for your child, but also an experience that teaches them about the importance of responsibility overall.