Teaching kindness to animals

You may have already met Sookie.

He is only a couple of months old, and is the childrens’ first ever pet cat. All three kids just love him to bits. Missy 1 seems to deal with him the most appropriately, surprisingly. She will stand or sit with him, meow at him, talk to him, give him a gentle pat and wander off.

Missy 9 and Mr 3 are the ones to watch. Both don’t intend to do him any harm… But they started out this kid-cat relationship  far too gung-ho. Wanting to pick him up when Sookie didn’t want it, getting really close up in the poor moggy’s face… Mr 3 had this dreadful habit of chasing him around when the cat was clearly exhausted. He also hit and kicked Sookie a few times early on. Oh crap.

Thankfully, our kids have improved in their treatment of the little dude, and I’m going to share a few things that have worked in teaching kindness and consideration to animals, here.

Get the kids involved in caring for their pets.

This helps kids to understand that pets have the same needs us humans have: food, water, sleep, toileting and gentleness. It helps them to understand the concept that animals have feelings just like we do. Our kiddies have helped me to make Sookie’s food, and are encouraged to watch him eat his dinner.

We discuss how he must be feeling:
‘do you think he feels hungry?’
‘do you think he likes his dinner?’
‘is he full now?’
‘is he thirsty?’
‘he’s lying down after his dinner, how do you think he’s feeling now? Is he tired?’

Help them to learn to read your pet’s body language.
We’ve been encouraging the kids to think about how Sookie is feeling, by talking about when he’s purring, and the kids now know that this is a sign that he’s in a relaxed mood, and will not mind being picked up by the older two. Thankfully, Missy 1 doesn’t want to pick him up anyway.

We make sure we tell the kids when he clearly doesn’t want to be bothered by them, by describing his posture, pointing out that he is trying to get away, he looks scared, or he looks snappy. We also asked the kids what they thought he might do if, for example we were rough, or hit him. Would he bite? Scratch?

It helps that Missy 9 brought home an arsenal of cat books from the library, so she has been sharing what she’s learnt about their body language. Thank god, because prior to buying this little guy, I wasn’t a cat person at all.

If your child doesn’t take the hint, remove the pet or the child from the situation

In the early days,  Mr 3 was so enamored of Sookie that he could not contain his excitement and love for his new pet. It didn’t matter how many times we told him to leave the cat alone because he didn’t like what Mr 3 was doing, he just kept harassing him. At times like this, we had no choice but to move Sookie to a safer room, so that both Mr 3 and Sookie didn’t get hurt. The room had a gate that Mr 3 couldn’t get into, but Sookie could slip through the bars at any time to eat, drink or toilet.

Sometimes, there is only one way they will learn – the hard way

If you’ve tried all the above methods and you have a child with an overabundance of love like Mr 3, it is inevitable in some cases (as was in ours) that the pet will lash out. Don’t get me wrong, of course it’s important to supervise small children with pets closely. But even then, Mr 3 still got bitten and scratched a couple of times. It’s sad to say that that was the most effective lesson out of all the lessons in Mr 3′s case.

Fast forward to today

I’m very happy with how gentle and kind all three of our kids are with dear Sookie, now. In the beginning, there was no way I would’ve allowed Mr 3 to pick him up and carry him. In fact, I didn’t let Missy 9 pick him up in front of Mr 3, only when he was in bed, so there wouldn’t be that jealousy. But now, Mr 3 is able to wait until he hears Sookie purring, then he picks up the world’s most relaxed cat and carries him around, and in time passes him to Missy 9. I realize typing this, that I haven’t had to remove Sookie from the room in weeks. I’m guessing it takes some time for the kids to get over their excitement and learn the rules. I think Sookie has learnt what to expect from us, too.

I’d love to hear your tips on how you teach your children to be kind to their pets or other animals.