Preschoolers and Pets

You just can’t beat the combination of children and pets. It’s a natural. Youngsters love pets and pets love youngsters. On the surface the reason appears simple enough: young children enjoy a living, breathing playmate of their own--one that’s just about their size and always ready to play.

Pets as Non-demanding Companions
Pets offer children the one luxury they often don’t receive, the opportunity to be part of a non-demanding relationship. During a preschooler’s developmental years, there are pressures to behave in socially acceptable ways, pressures to learn fundamental skills and pressures to learn how to relate to adult care givers and to other children. But the pet is constant, offering love and physical closeness--asking for nothing and demanding nothing in return--no matter how stressful the day. Pets become a good friend that youngsters can count on, can tell their troubles to, share their joys, or invite into their imaginations.

Pets Make Good Teachers
Pets are also an invaluable teaching tool. Pets teach responsibility--that there are obligations when you become involved in caring for another living thing. Children learn that other creatures have needs, feelings, and rights--lessons that many preschoolers carry into their adult lives.
Pets may also teach our children about death. The passing of a pet is often a child’s first experience with death and it may help prepare the child for the loss of family members. Parents who take seriously the death of a pet take advantage of an invaluable experience in preparing the young child for the realities of the adult world.

The Most Important Reason for Preschoolers to Have Pets
The best advantage to owning a pet is the obvious one--pets and youngsters have fun together. In today’s world of television and violence, nuclear concerns, and fears about personal safety, preschoolers tend to be more sophisticated than their parents were in their more innocent, growing-up years. Pets provide the opportunity for children to be children.