A dog is a man’s best friend, and this best friend helps in making new friends. Dogs give you more than what you can think of—emotional, mental, and social support.
Apart from improving social skills these furry companions also play a significant role in teaching kids important life skills such as empathy, kindness, and responsibility. Caring for a pet dog, making sure the dog gets his nutritious meal, has access to freshwater and stays healthy, can also aid in boosting your child’s self-esteem thereby increasing their ability to interact with the people around.
With the increasing usage of technology and gadgets, children are becoming lazy, lonely, obese, stressed, and may develop severe mental and heart disease. To socialize children, dogs are the right reason for them to go out, interact, make friends, and play!
Dogs have such outstanding qualities including faithfulness, compassion, companionship, and obedience that anyone would love to bring home a dog. Even the most lonely and anti-social person out there can crave for the presence of a furry pooch.
Research on Pet Ownership and Social Interaction:
Studies have shown that pets positively influence the lives of their owners, and help in attaining physical and mental well-being. Latest surveys have shown that pets not only benefit the cognitive and emotional skills but also improve their social skills. The University of Western Australia, WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health surveyed on how pets help people socialize better. The results based on responses of 2,700 pet owners showed that pet-ownership is the 3rd most common way to help people socialize in their neighborhood.
The survey has also shown that dog owners, in particular, who took their Fidos on daily walks, were more likely to befriend other pet-owners, veterinaries, behaviorists, and trainers.
A survey by PLoS has shown that pet ownerships promote interaction between people. The results of the report revealed that “Around 40% of pet owners reported receiving one or more types of social support (i.e., emotional, informational, appraisal, instrumental) via people they met through their pet.”
Around 148 studies have shown that social connections are helpful for maintaining long-term mental and physical health. Moreover, people having social networks had 50% higher chances of living longer than those having less social interactions
How do Pets Increase the Chances of Social Interaction?
If you are a new dog-parent, you must have noticed how people are attracted by your pooch everywhere you go. Such small social interactions will create positive feelings in you and develop your confidence to communicate with anyone even strangers.
Similar is the case with anti-social and shy kids. With greater interactions with other kids, your child will develop the confidence to confront more people and other kids. It helps in the development of a balanced personality of your child as the dog provides emotional support and people provide social support.
Moreover, dogs have shown to increase the emotional intelligence of kids. Emotional intelligence includes feelings of compassion, kindness, sharing, care, and love, etc. These qualities will help your child gain acceptance and appreciation from elders. Such confidence boost can help the child make a bigger social circle.
Endorphins, the happy hormones, are released due to physical activities of your child with the dog. They strengthen the bond of the child with the pooch and develop feelings of affection in the child. Along with that, taking care of the pooch each day develops a sense of responsibility in the child. Such characteristics add up for balanced personality development of the child.
The children should be given an opportunity to take the dogs out every day. If you are worried about flea infestation, have a look at UHL selected flea collars. It is well-known that the children, who go out, have a positive and creative outlook towards life. Do you know positivity is the most sought out personality trait?
The children perform better in their academics. Dogs help them earn acclaim at the school. They develop better communication skills as well.
Many people identify with others having a similar pet or dog breed. As the two pets interact, the pet owners form a social bonding with each other. Kids having similar pets can relate to each other easily at the pet parks.
Read Also :
