By: Violet Yan
A compilation of information from researchers around the world posted on June 9, 2022 concluded that pets give children a brain boost. This information will benefit children and adults all over the world.
“We can actually say that children having pets and interacting with them over time in early childhood does seem to cause these added benefits in terms of their social-emotional development,” says Christian, who is a researcher at the Telethon Kids Institute. Using information from a study of 4,000 children from five to seven, Christian and partners discovered that pet ownership resulted in fewer peer problems and more social behavior. In another research they found that children from 2 to 5 with a dog were more active, spent less time on screens, and slept more than those without a pet.
“When children get to know their pets, it opens them up to a deeper understanding of animals in the wider world. They tend to learn from their pet, somehow, how to be more understanding, empathetic and responsive to animals in general,” says John Bradshaw, former reader in companion animal behavior at the University of Bristol, UK, and author of various books about cats and dogs.
For many people, pets are loved family members who support them across many stages of life. They can help couples’ relationships, play with kids, and provide companionship for parents when kids leave home. One study in the US found that 63% of families with a baby under 12 months old had a pet, and an Australian study found a 10% increase in pet ownership when children start school.
Another reason pets are influential on children is that children learn from pets in the moment. In a pair of studies, children made fewer errors on a sorting task and needed fewer prompts in a memory task with a pet. Research has found that the simple act of viewing our pets as family improves our well-being. Even infants are observing the animals they live with. Research by Karinna Hurley and Lisa Oakes at the University of California, Davis, US, found that babies with a pet were better at identifying animals by the time they were 10 months old than those without.
Children rank pets as some of the most important beings in their lives. Their companions are emotional support, as well as unfailing companions. Some of those benefits are very hard to quantify because they’re individual, and science deals with big populations. But just because something seems not very tangible and easily measured, that doesn’t mean it’s fake.