Pets can provide their owners with much more than companionship. More studies discovered that if one type of relationship was strong, the other relationships were likely to be strong as well. Another recent study shows that, in addition to human-human bonds being enhanced, pets can help create critical social support, which is good for long-term health.
In fact in 2019, The C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health asked a national sample of parents of children ages 5-18 about reasons to have or not have a family pet.
Two-thirds of parents (69%) report their family currently has a pet, and 16% say they had one in the past. The most common pets are dogs (76%), cats (41%), fish, birds, and reptiles (24%), and small mammals such as rabbits or guinea pigs (9%).
Many factors go into deciding whether or not to have a family pet. Parents with pets endorse a number of reasons for children having a pet. Details are as below:
63% – Companionship
57% – Teaches responsibility
39% – Having a pet growing up and enjoy it
30% – Protection
1.Pets can help improve self-esteem
When given tasks to complete, such as helping with the care of a pet, kids show an improvement in self esteem.
Pets were deemed better providers of psychological support as they consistently achieved higher rankings than many of the child’s human relationships, such as making one feel better about oneself, but not for practical problems children may have to face.
Owning pets, which are typically kept as property, enabled children to create positive images of the self and of life, increased resilience and coping skills and increased social participation within the community.
Pets can help reduce negativity and stress, cheer up our mental spirits.
Multiple studies showed that children who owned pets were more empathetic towards others.
Petting has been proven to lower cortisol levels in both the person and the pet. Also, research has found that children’s stress levels decrease when reading aloud to a pet.
Playing with a pet raises levels of serotonin and dopamine, which calm the mind and increase the mood.
2.Pets can teach responsibility
In addition to improving self-esteem, pets can teach responsibility.
In the lessons about life that pets provided, including reproduction, birth, illnesses, accidents, death, and bereavement.
It will help children learn to take initiative, remain grounded, and teach them that another living thing depends on them.
3.Pets help us in cognitive development
Some research has suggested that kids who talk to pets, whether by giving praise and commands or just babbling, show improved cognitive development.
research on companion animal bonding and young children’s social development found higher scores on parent reports of self-reliance and independent decision skills in strongly bonded pet-owning children compared to weak and moderately bonded pet-owning children, and non-pet-owning children.
4.Pets help us in social development
Not all kids are outgoing. But, studies show that children who are around a pet tend to be more social.
This can help our children make friends, keep friends, and become more extroverted in a group situation.
Finally ,Pets improve our lives in more ways than we can ever imagine. We should be very thankful for all they do to keep us comforted, motivated, in better spirits, in better shape and less stressed. And perhaps we are thanking them more. The pet products industry sets a new record for pet spending nearly every year, and pets are traveling with, and spending more time with, their owners as more pet products are developed that make it easier on both the pet and pet owner to spend even more of their day together. As Martha Stewart likes to say, “It’s a Good Thing.”
