How to teach children to love animals?

Many children consider pets as family members (photo provided by character)

Recently, public opinion has been stirred up many times by images and videos of children abusing animals - an age that many people still consider "like a blank page"... However, in many families, especially young children, pets are considered a member of the family.

Take care of pets like small members of the family

For many years, in the family of Ms. Lang Thi Tam in Viet Hoa ward (Hai Duong city), dogs and cats have been close friends. In 2016, when the whole family was still renting, she raised a dog. In 2018, she moved to a larger rental house and raised a cat. Currently, her family is raising a poodle and a British shorthair cat. Ms. Tam takes advantage of her free time at noon, when her children are at school, to bathe and dry the cats and dogs. Nguyen Bao Ngoc (born in 2012), Ms. Tam's child, said: "Whenever my younger brother and I come home, we hug and feed the cats and dogs, and make houses for them out of cardboard... To me, cats and dogs are like small members of the family."

Members of Ms. NTNN’s family in Hai Tan Ward (Hai Duong City) also love dogs and cats. Ms. N. said that every time she brings a pet home, she gives each one a unique name. Everyone in the family calls them grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters, and takes care of them when they are sick. When a pet dies or is taken away, everyone in the family is sad, especially the children.

Because her child often coughed, Ms. Vu Thi Mai Phuong in Quang Trung Ward (Hai Duong City) stopped raising a dog. Before that, her family raised a lovely poodle. Both husband and wife loved this dog. Her eldest daughter also especially loved her pet dog. Many times when the family had to send them to her grandmother's house to help take care of them, the girl cried and asked to go there to take them home. After the family stopped raising the dog, many times the girl asked her mother to buy one.

Teach children how to love

In families with pets, many children learn to love not only pets but also animals in general. Ms. N. shared: “No one in my family beats or hurts pets, so my children do the same, never mistreat them. When children are exposed to and close to animals, it will foster an emotional lifestyle, friendly to people and nature.”

Like Ms. N.'s child, Ms. Doan Thi Thu Trang's child in Sat town (Binh Giang) learned to love animals from a young age. "Children are inevitably hyperactive, but I teach my child that dogs, cats, and all other animals know pain and have mothers, so if I catch or harm them, they will be hurt and cannot return to their mothers. Through that, I have awakened love in my child, and many times my child has advised other children not to harm animals," Ms. Trang said.

With a love for animals, many children gradually develop many good personality traits. According to many people, Ms. Phuong's children are very sociable with friends, loving and polite to the elderly. Not only with pets in the family, but when going out, meeting any animal, the children also show love and closeness.

According to Master Nguyen Kieu Lien, a psychology lecturer at Hai Duong Medical Technical University, if children are exposed to and taught how to treat animals well when they are young, when they start going to school and grow up, they will often be more sensitive, knowing how to love their friends and those who are weaker than them.

Psychologists have also proven that the behavior of young children can be a predictor of their future personality. Animal abuse is considered one of the three indicators of human behavior and psychological development, and is listed as one of the signs of incomplete and unstable psychological development. Their sensory and empathy areas are less developed than normal people, so they do not realize or understand how their actions harm other people and things around them.

Teaching children to understand, love, treat well and respect animals and the life around them is an important lesson to become people who know how to love and live in harmony with nature and the environment.

PEACEFUL