Having a pet improves your child’s confidence and make them more resilient
The benefits of dogs and cats on their pint-sized human buddies have been likened to having a brother or sister, and boosting a child’s resilience, confidence and their ability to make friends is just the tip of the pig’s ear.
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Kids who grow up with pets are more resilient and make friends more easily, new research reveals.
Dogs and cats also help pint-sized human buddies learn to share and boost their confidence.
The benefits have been likened to those from having a brother or sister.
Researchers from the Telethon Kids Institute, based within the Perth Children’s Hospital, examined the impact of pet ownership on more than 8000 children aged five and seven.
Lead author Assoc Prof Hayley Christian said kids who didn’t have siblings benefited most from a dog or cat in the home.
“Compared with children with no pets, children with dogs or cats had fewer emotional symptoms and peer problems,’’ Assoc Prof Christian said.
“Children were 20 per cent less likely to have abnormal scores on any social-emotional development scale if they had a dog compared with no pets at all.
“This finding was particularly evident for children without siblings.
“Interacting with other children including one’s siblings facilitates positive social behaviours and a family pet may provide a similar role to siblings in supporting a child’s social-emotional development.”
The study, which used data from the Growing Up in Australia Longitudinal survey and was published in the Journal of Pediatrics, showed children whose families owned a dog in particular showed more positive social behaviour like sharing and helping others.
“Interacting with pets can help children to learn about social concepts by mimicking the interactions that children have with other humans,’’ Assoc Prof Christian noted.
“Interacting positively with a pet can increase confidence and decrease the fear of rejection in social interactions with other children.”
Balwyn North mother-of-five Ainsley Sinicco said her family’s labrador Bruce, 12, and eight-year-old pug-beagle cross Pumpkin offered her children unconditional love and friendship.
“Being rescue dogs, the children appreciate how important it is to provide them with love, which is returned by the dogs in abundance,” she said.
“Everyone in the street knows Pumpkin and Bruce — they love it when the neighbours’ kids come and pat them.”
Daughter Greta, 8, said the dogs “love being part of our family and are always smiling which makes me happy when I am feeling sad.”
About two-thirds of families with babies and toddlers own pets, rising to three-quarters of those with children aged up to seven.
Pet ownership was lowest in households where children had younger siblings and highest where children had no siblings.
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