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"Pets Children"
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Sonya's chickens
Sonya raises her three chickens from the time they are tiny chicks. She feeds them, shelters them and loves them. Everywhere Sonya goes, her chicks are peeping at her heels. Under her care, the chicks grow into hens and even give Sonya a wonderful gift: an egg! One night, Sonya hears noises coming from the chicken coop and discovers that one of her hens has disappeared. Where did the hen go? What happened to her? When Sonya discovers the answers, she learns some important truths about the interconnectedness of nature and the true joys and sorrows of caring for another creature.
Book
Associations between Pet Care Responsibility, Companion Animal Interactions, and Family Relationships during COVID-19
For families with children during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is crucial to explore how both youth and parents view their roles with regard to the shared caretaking of pets. While most human–animal interaction studies examine adult or early childhood samples, our focus was on adolescent development. We present findings from a U.S. based mixed-method study of adolescent surveys and parent interviews regarding pet care responsibility. As part of an ongoing longitudinal study, we analyzed survey data from 567 pet-owning adolescents and a subset of 356 dog owning adolescents aged 10–17 as well as 31 in-depth interviews with parents of adolescents from the same study. Higher reported pet caretaking responsibilities was significantly associated with a preference for spending time with pets when stressed and improved family relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic for both pet owners and dog owners. For dog owners only, increased levels of responsibility for the pet was significantly associated with a higher likelihood of identifying as a pet owner. Qualitative findings showcase the range of parental expectations and adolescent initiative around pet caretaking. Our study highlights the continued importance of pet companionship during the adolescent years as they develop their identities as responsible pet owners.
Journal Article
When a pet dies
Explores the feelings of frustration, sadness, and loneliness that a youngster may feel when a pet dies.
Book
Pet Keeping in the Time of COVID-19: The Canine and Feline Companions of Young Children
Amid COVID-19, children’s interactions with pet animals in the household were at times strengthened, strained, or established anew. Extensive periods of confinement made the home environment not only the site for most family activities but also the hub for children’s school and many adults’ work. Research on the role of pets during the pandemic has consisted primarily of online surveys with the general finding that sweeping changes to daily living had major consequences for the dynamics between pets and people. This article addresses issues related to young children and pet keeping within the context of the recent world health crisis and the resultant lockdowns. First, it describes how the definition of a pet has changed. It then examines children’s attachments to dogs and cats, the two species most frequently chosen as pets for young children worldwide. Next, it highlights the potential risks and rewards of children cohabitating with cats and dogs at a time when many families were sequestered in homes. The article concludes with a discussion of the limitations and contributions of research on pet keeping during COVID-19 and suggests appropriate next steps that take into consideration the welfare of young children and their companion animals.
Journal Article
Wanda and the frogs
Worried that she'll be forced to give up her tadpoles once they start turning into frogs, Wanda hides them in her bedroom.
Book
Measuring Connections Between Children and Pets: Development of the Child–Dog Engagement Scale and Child–Cat Engagement Scale
As more families expand to include pets, it is important to explore how children interact and engage with them. While the past literature has focused on children’s involvement in animal-assisted therapy or their relationships with assistance animals, their everyday relationships with pets remain understudied. Following expert discussion and focus groups, a sample of 319 parents/guardians completed a questionnaire on their child’s relationship with their pet. Analysis of the data resulted in the development of a 38-item Child–Dog Engagement Scale (C-DES) and a 29-item Child–Cat Engagement Scale (C-CES). Each of these measures three factors: Emotional Attachment, Engagement, and Challenges. The development of parallel child–dog and child–cat scales offers a way to measure children’s relationships across these species, while accounting for the different needs of these animals and the unique ways that children may interact and care for them. The scales therefore provide a foundation for future research exploring how children’s relationships with both cats and dogs may contribute to their development.
Journal Article
If I had a dinosaur
Although she's considered other pets, a young girl's sure a dinosaur would be the perfect pet and imagines all the things she'd do with her dinosaur.
Book
Construing Complex Referentiality in Interspecies Interaction: Embodiment and Biosemiotics
This paper investigates language use in interspecies interaction. The aim is to characterize the variation in children’s pet-oriented speech and to explore how semantic complexity is treated. The analysis first presents quantitative observations on properties of talk and the ongoing activities. The dataset includes 19 video recordings presenting cats, dogs, and 6–12-year-old French-speaking children in an ecological context. The analysis showed that children spoke more to dogs than to cats. We also found a strong correlation between play activity and the amount of talk. We then observed that, just like adults in the previous literature, children use short utterances when talking to pets. This may indicate syntactic simplification. The second part of the study concentrated on complex referential constructions in two child–dog play sequences. It showed that the child enacted multilayered semantic configurations through indexical embodied means. The dog participated in constructing the referential link when she was asked to choose between alternatives. When it came to locating an absent referent, the child continued to employ indexical signs to support the abstract semantic structure, displaying awareness of the participants’ different semiotic worlds. The paper supports that while syntax is simplified, meaning structures may remain complex and become part of the play.
Journal Article
Bear and bunny
\"The bear and the bunny are friends who like to wander in the woods, look for things to eat, sing songs, and talk things over. One day, the bunny asks the bear, 'Why do we not have some kind of pet?' Well, the bear is not sure what a pet is. So the bunny explains that it is an animal that you take care of and feed, and one that loves you. But a pinecone is not the right pet for a bear and a bunny. And a caterpillar is nice, but it may not be very much fun. After a much-needed nap in the forest, will these two find their perfect pet?\"--Provided by publisher.
Book
Interest towards human, animal and object in children with autism spectrum disorders: an ethological approach at home
Autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterised by attention deficits in communication and social interactions and a lack of interest in people. Data are mostly based on clinical situations. However, recent studies have shown a more mixed situation where children with ASD (ASD children) displayed interest towards humans, in both experimental and natural settings. The aim of this study was to assess the interest of ASD children in a natural standardised home setting. Here, we hypothesised that ASD children would display more interest towards animate stimuli—human and pet—when in the child’s home than in the lab experimental setting. We used an ethological approach involving observations, a methodological alternative to lab static techniques, to investigate the behaviour of ninety 6- to 12-year-old ASD and typical development (TD) children. Our results were consistent with those of the literature revealing that the ASD children displayed interest towards animate stimuli as did children with TD children. Interestingly, while the ASD children showed higher interest towards humans, e.g. their parent, than the TD children did, they showed less interest towards pet compared to the TD children. Our results suggested that animals are not inherently easy to decode for ASD children, in contrast with previous experiences where a pet was regarded as a more attractive partner, easier to be understood. At last, the ASD children changed more frequently their focus point than the TD children did. These differences may be explained by the reduced attention skills in ASD or the study’s context. To conclude, larger exploratory studies in natural settings conducted beyond ordinary human to human interactions are crucial for better understanding of the underlying mechanisms involved in social interactions in ASD.
Journal Article