Children who live with animals in their early years grow up healthier and less allergic. This trend continues in the later years of their lives. These children also develop better social skills.
Researchers did a study with 8,500 adults participants from Europe and Australia. They focused on the childhood years spent with animals, and the presence of allergies. These children who lived with animals grew up healthier and with fewer allergies.
Many parents worry that pets are not a good idea for their children, and that they could be dangerous. If you're expecting your first child you may even consider giving up your dog or cat in the name of the newborn. Kids that grow up with a pet are healthier and more responsible. Did you know that they are also more mature, stable, empathetic, and compassionate?
Besides food and water, animals need love, as people do. Children who grow up with animals develop a sense of responsibility and care. Communicating with animals also helps in communicating with all kinds of people. Animals don't communicate like us, they use non-verbal cues and you have to learn their language. This is also the case with the relationship with people. If a child treats animals with patience and love, he's much more likely to do the same with humans.
Children who learn to take care of their animals, also learn how to take care of themselves. This leads to improvement of the child's self-confidence and independence. If he lives with a pet, the child also learns what the consequences of his actions or inactions are. If he doesn't feed the fish - they'll die, if he doesn't walk the dog, he'll whine and cause damage. Children understand what it's like to engage and perform tasks around the pet.
Teenagers may grumble they have to take the dog out, still they understand the fact that obligations to others exist. That's why children who have a pet are more disciplined. Animals teach children respect, tolerance, reproduction, disease, suffering, and death. And this gives a great basis for life as an adult.
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