Some individuals hold a view that owning pets can bring about beneficial developments to children whereas others argue about hazardous situations and health-related issues that pets may cause to them. This essay will shed light on both sides and highlight my rejection to keeping pets because of their detrimental impacts on children.
Initially, it is worth considering that pets can play the role of an emotional support for children and help them to lead mentally healthy lives. Take a domestic dog raised by an only child for example, the dog now acts as the child’s close friend and this child can spend hours cuddling, striking, feeding and playing with his/her pet, soon, he/she might ignore how lonely he/she used to be owing to the lack of siblings. By this way, pets can also be used as a therapy to treat those with mental disorders such as autism, anxiety, depression, etc. This has led to the situation where the child maintain a positive mind as well as their loneliness is chased away by raising pets.
To the contrast of the argument, pets could potentially pose a severe threat to children’s health if being selected and treated improperly. To illustrate, some pets which are sold from unreliable sellers with unclear sources may carry pathogens on their bodies and are likely to spread diseases to children, especially to those who have limited knowledge about illness prevention. Also, uncertified pets being sold may be affected with rabies. These types of pets can cause life-threatening situations or even fatalities if they bite children when being let in aggressive mood. As a consequence, pets stand no chance of being a companion but a danger to households. Furthermore, the disadvantage also relates to children and pets’ emotional attachment and loss. After a long time caring for their pets, children may become deeply attached to their domestic animals and the unexpected loss of pets through separations such as relocation, rehoming or deaths can be a severely traumatic experience for children to deal with. This can lead to children’s grief, anxiety, mental breakdown and various difficulties in coping with the loss.
Taking everything into consideration, besides convincing reasons to prove how beneficial pets are to children, some potential drawbacks such as the likelihood to expose diseases, children’s emotional damages after pets’ loss, etc should be some factors making parents consider cautiously. In this regard, it is reasonable that the pros and cons of children keeping pets attract controversial opinions and I totally lean myself towards the demerits.