Pets – Teachers of Life Lessons (Part-2)

Many kind souls have an extraordinary love for animals. Amongst the many that I know is my daughter, and her passion for animals exceeds everyone else in our family. Almost nine months ago, she adopted a tiny two-day-old kitten who was abandoned in our garden.

Emaciated and dehydrated in the hot summer month of July in Dubai, the kitten had barely managed to survive in the scorching heat. She named him "Rajah" and tenderly fed the feeble little mite every two hours initially, avoiding any outings with her family or friends. She ensured that his sleeping bag was heated comfortably and provided him with a regular dose of vitamins to help him gain strength. I admirably watched her spend her free time researching kittens and their well-being after her work. The countless sleepless nights and tireless determination to see the kitten's survival amidst her busy professional schedule finally bore fruit when he gained strength and became an energetic bundle of mischief.

Though my daughter got her first pet close to her teens, she had always shown tremendous affection for animals, even as a toddler. For that matter, I think children, unless they have been scarred by an animal attack or traumatized by a created fear, are very welcoming in their affection for animals. Pets can contribute to children's emotional development, health, and well-being in their formative years. The most powerful lesson that a child can learn from taking care of pets is acquiring a sense of responsibility. Caring for pets requires commitment, dedication, and discipline, which adds value to the child's approach to education and personal and professional life in later years. This sense of responsibility can enable children to become self-motivated and form an altruistic attitude toward the well-being of all living creatures.

Furthermore, this self-motivation promotes healthy and positive behaviour, reducing the dangers of acquiring unhealthy habits or lifestyles. The sense of responsibility promotes a better awareness of health too. The regular exercises required for a pet teach children to lead an active lifestyle for maintaining fitness and health. The love and affection that having a pet allows a child (even an adult!) to experience are overwhelming. The security that a pet brings into a child's life transcends into assisting a child in managing stress and anxiety better. The companionship that a pet can provide can also reduce the challenge of coping with peer and familial issues.

Language, communication and learning skills get enhanced by a child's interaction with pets. An affectionate verbal and non-verbal communication display plays a vital role in a child's relationship with the pet, whether during play or feeding time. A pet engages the members to communicate by providing more reasons to discuss and relate to each other since a pet is often a member whose well-being is a matter of concern for all in the family. In the case of educational institutions for children with learning disabilities, therapy dogs can induce confidence in the children's struggle to cope effectively with schoolwork. In these schools, children can improve skills like reading through practice in the presence of a therapy dog. These specially trained dogs offer silent, non-judgmental support to a child who may otherwise feel embarrassed to practice in front of their teachers, friends or even family members.

Pets help children acquire maturity and understanding of life by teaching children about birth, mortality and bereavement. The exposure children receive from pets relating to the inevitability of life and death heightens a child's coping mechanism to face other challenges in life too. A pet provides a child with a valuable glimpse that life has to experience the joys of living life well and the pains of losses. Anyone who has a pet will happily vouch that it's not just children who stand to benefit from the lessons that pets can teach. Adults like me who have never had pets till my thirties can vociferously pronounce the enrichment pets have brought into my life. Yet the earlier we are privileged to share our lives with pets, the greater the joy and wisdom we stand to learn and experience.