Parrot facts for kids, The roles and functions of pets in the emotional, relational, social, and intellectual lives of humans are particularly clear when you consider their interactions with the child.
Indeed, if we examine these in the light of experimental research, longitudinal studies, and “clinical observations”, they shed incomparable light on the mechanisms and processes that shape individual development, attachment phenomena, and behaviors. and cognitive processes in humans.
If we base ourselves on the words of the children, by sharing the habitat, the “ecological niche” and the intimacy of humans, the pet is considered both as a friend who is part of the family, a confidant who can see and hear everything, an accomplice who does not betray and who can be trusted blindly.
He does not speak and therefore does not judge, and does not refer to personal and family difficulties: without counting the “services” that he can render to people and society.
The child and the parrot
In everyday life, pets have the possibility and the capacity to spontaneously manifest new, nuanced, strange, complex, and diversified behaviors, both in their specific register and in the registers learned and shaped in contact with humans.
Their ability to decode human signals and adjust to their behavior, as well as their flexibility, generate the feeling, or the certainty, that they match emotions and effects (for the precise definition of tuning or ” attunement ”, see Stern, 1985).
Children of all ages can thus form the most surprising representations and ideas, carry out the most delusional transfers, reconstruct their reasoning, and develop new projects. Interactions with the pet, therefore, help to shape their emotional, emotional, relational, social, and cognitive world.
5 Pet Birds Great for Kids
SOURCE:MARLENE MC’COHEN
Are parrots good pets
Parrots can be admitted as family and family partners when they are able to reproduce environmental noises, musical tunes, vocalizations, onomatopoeias, and words of humans, and especially when they seem to imitate them, that is, to give them the same meaning and the same meaning in the same contexts and situations.
How the parrot animal contributes to the emotional security of the child
Relationships with monkeys will not be covered in the … helps to reveal how different levels of the child’s brain function can be unlocked, activated, organized, and regulated. (For other animals, some of which may become familiar, for example, goats and rabbits, see Montagner, 2002b).
Combined with research on the child’s relationship systems with the mother and other family partners, with peers and “outside” people, it helps to give full meaning to his individual development, to his attachment processes, to his behavior and his intellectual functioning, and thus, paradoxically, to reconcile different theories of human development.
Many situations experienced with animals have anxiolytic and soothing effects on humans. For example, there is a significant drop in heart rate and blood pressure in a child who strokes a parrot (and also in humans of all ages who watch fish evolve in an aquarium: Friedman et al., 1983; Katcher et al., 1983).
In addition, if we measure behavioral indicators during interactions between a child and his parrot, the rough or aggressive behavior of the child has a low probability of causing, in animals, threats or aggressions, and thus inducing or reinforcing the emotional insecurity of the child himself and of human partners:
in the vast majority of cases, the parrot reacts by bodily avoidance or flight (Filiatre et al., 1986, 1988; Millot et al., 1988, 1989).
More fundamentally, the measurement of behavioral indicators from films shows that interactions with a familiar parrot help to reduce emotional insecurity in most children.
This is what we caricaturally observe in worried, anxious, or anxious children who cannot overcome or put their fears into perspective when they have lived or are experiencing destabilizing situations or events, especially if their human partners are insecure or if the environment is threatening.
The emotional security that sets in and develops during relationships with the parrot is mainly expressed by appeasement and reassurance (crying, groans, or tremors fade), attenuation, or extinction of behavior. avoidance, fear, and flight, increasing the frequency of affiliative behaviors (smiles, laughs, caresses, jubilations, offerings, and solicitations). But we also note the attenuation or non-manifestation of so-called hyperactive behaviors (Bouvard, 2002) and aggressive behaviors.
At the same time, the child unlocks his “inner world” (he speaks and confides in the animal: language then plays its full role in the expression of emotions and thought, and in the communication).
This is also what is observed in disabled children or in psychotics, autists, or with “cerebral palsy” who regularly find a parrot, even if the reassuring effects are less legible (Condorcet, 1973; Levinson, 1969, 1985; Vernay, 2003).
Children also have a high probability of unlocking their inner world and settling on the slope of emotional security as soon as they perceive a possibility of tuning with a cat, a horse (Pelletier-Milet, 2004) dolphin, or a talking parrot (this is obviously rarer), but also with other animals – rabbits, guinea pigs, goats (Montagner, 2002b).
The reduction of emotional insecurity during interactions with a pet is particularly evident in children who have not made an attachment (Bowlby, 1969-1980) “secure” with their mother, father, or another human partner. (Ainsworth 1974, 1978; Pierrehumbert, 2003, Montagner, 2002a, 2006).
Consequently, the daily relationship with a partner who does not judge, who does not refer to personal or family difficulties, who does not betray, and whose behavioral manifestations are soothing and reassuring (see below), can settle or comfort children. on the emotional security side.
Especially when this process is slowed down, prevented, or thwarted by an “unsafe” attachment with the family partner (s) (abused child; a child whose mother is anxious or depressed; parent (s) suffering from personality disorders; breast breaks family, unemployed parent (s), etc.).
How the animal parrots stimulate the emotional and relational development of the child
Once emotional security is installed and the inner world is unlocked, the child can get out of their blockages and inhibitions.
He can release the whole range of his emotions and skills. Regarding emotions, it reveals them without restraint at the same time as it structures them: it tells the animal its joys, fears, anger, sadness, surprises, or disgust (the six emotions considered innate and universal).
He also reveals his effects (worries, anxieties, frustrations, jealousies, friendships …). At the same time, during proximal interactions, he perceives the animal’s internal states which he interprets as emotions or effects comparable to what he feels.
The release of emotions and effects is accompanied by the release of “basic” skills which underpin the emotional, relational, and social development of the child, but also his cognitive development (see below). Five major skills (or core skills) have been defined and formalized (Montagner, 1995-2006).
Parrot Follows Her Favorite Kid Everywhere
SOURCE:The Dodo
Sustained visual attention
This basic skill defines the baby’s capacity, more generally of children of all ages, to steadily look at a “target”, that is to say in a non-fleeting manner, not limited to visual scans, and not interrupted by external events.
It is manifest in babies a few days or weeks old (depending on the child) during eye-to-eye interactions with their mother. It is more and more marked and lasting as the mother anchors her relationship with the baby in “capturing” and controlling her gaze (see Montagner, 2006).
Most children are fascinated or confused by what they think they see in the animal’s eyes. On their stomachs, sitting, or on their knees, they look for proximal “eye to eye” interactions.
The installation, development, and strengthening of their sustained visual attention is facilitated by the “meeting” with the sustained visual attention that also presents pets.
Dogs are in constant search of the human gaze. They continuously initiate and accept renewed and long-lasting “eye to eye” interactions.
Familiar dogs thus provide the child with a framework of a priori reassuring and structuring landmarks: the child does not then exhibit behaviors and does not make comments that can be interpreted as the expression of insecurity or malaise.
Having a long “eye to eye” interaction with his familiar dog, he has time to give meaning and meaning to his behaviors and to adjust to them, interpret his emotional states and affective, and agree to them (if it forms the idea that the animal has emotions and affects comparable or identical to what it feels).
The child liberates at the same time his other basic skills (see below) and his language productions. The observations in the kindergarten and elementary school classes show that when children said to be failing school have the opportunity to experience eye-to-eye interactions with the teacher’s dog,
the frequency and duration of their self-centered behavior, fear, avoidance, “hyperactivity” and aggression are then significantly reduced (Montagner, 1995b, 2002b).
Familiar or becoming familiar dogs can thus be “agents” likely to play a significant role in the development of processes related to sustained visual attention and which could not be structured in a child at home, at school, or elsewhere, as part of its relationships with humans.
In particular: multi-channel communication, reading the emotions and effects of a partner who accepts proximal interactions, joint visual attention, tuning of emotions, and “secure” attachment.
Cats also obviously have a capacity for sustained visual attention, but only at certain times, in certain contexts, and in certain situations (Montagner, 2002b).
Likewise, horses have a capacity for sustained visual attention, in particular when they are “eye to eye” with a human, but the lateralization of the eyes, size, body mass, anatomical features (nostrils and mouth impressive, hooves) and the extent of their behaviors limit eye-to-eye contact and proximal interactions, especially when it comes to children.
Dolphins also appear to have an inexhaustible ability to initiate and accept eye-to-eye interactions with humans (thus interpreted) and then to develop sustained visual attention.
In addition, the peculiarities and richness of their “vocal” repertoire give the feeling that they are in dialogue. This animal can therefore also play a role in some of the constructions previously reported and linked to sustained visual attention.
As for parrots, certain species create situations that lead to renewed and lasting eye-to-eye contact with humans, and thus to sustained visual attention. But, as in cats, these behaviors are episodic and variable depending on the context and the situation.
The sustained visual attention of parrots is closely linked to skills that most other animals do not have: the ability to reproduce sounds, sounds, musical themes, vocalizations of animals, and language productions, that of having air to give them the same meaning and the same meaning as humans, that is to say, to imitate them (this is interpreted: see below).
Through their “vocal” and “linguistic” productions, their gaze that is both mobile and immobile, which seems to “dissect” the environment and people, and the sustained visual attention they give them, parrots gather around them the different family members and visitors.
By creating situations of joint visual attention through their “imitations” and by making “those around them” speak, they stimulate affiliative behaviors (see below), communication and dialogue.
Dogs are in constant search of the human gaze. They continuously initiate and accept renewed and long-lasting “eye to eye” interactions.
Familiar dogs thus provide the child with a framework of a priori reassuring and structuring landmarks: the child does not then exhibit behaviors and does not make comments that can be interpreted as the expression of insecurity or malaise.
Having a long “eye to eye” interaction with his familiar dog, he has time to give meaning and meaning to his behaviors and to adjust to them, interpret his emotional states and affective, and agree to them (if it forms the idea that the animal has emotions and affects comparable or identical to what it feels). The child liberates at the same time his other basic skills (see below) and his language productions.
The observations in the kindergarten and elementary school classes show that when children said to be failing school have the opportunity to experience eye-to-eye interactions with the teacher’s dog, the frequency and duration of their self-centered behavior, fear, avoidance, “hyperactivity” and aggression are then significantly reduced (Montagner, 1995b, 2002b).
Familiar or becoming familiar dogs can thus be “agents” likely to play a significant role in the development of processes related to sustained visual attention and which could not be structured in a child at home, at school, or elsewhere, as part of its relationships with humans.
In particular: multi-channel communication, reading the emotions and effects of a partner who accepts proximal interactions, joint visual attention, tuning of emotions, and “secure” attachment.
Cats also obviously have a capacity for sustained visual attention, but only at certain times, in certain contexts, and in certain situations (Montagner, 2002b).
Likewise, horses have a capacity for sustained visual attention, in particular when they are “eye to eye” with a human, but the lateralization of the eyes, size, body mass, anatomical features (nostrils and mouth impressive, hooves) and the extent of their behaviors limit eye-to-eye contact and proximal interactions, especially when it comes to children.
Dolphins also appear to have an inexhaustible ability to initiate and accept eye-to-eye interactions with humans (thus interpreted) and then to develop sustained visual attention.
In addition, the peculiarities and richness of their “vocal” repertoire give the feeling that they are in dialogue. This animal can therefore also play a role in some of the constructions previously reported and linked to sustained visual attention.
As for parrots, certain species create situations that lead to renewed and lasting eye-to-eye contact with humans, and thus to sustained visual attention. But, as in cats, these behaviors are episodic and variable depending on the context and the situation.
The sustained visual attention of parrots is closely linked to skills that most other animals do not have: the ability to reproduce sounds, sounds, musical themes, vocalizations of animals, and language productions, that of having air to give them the same meaning and the same meaning as humans, that is to say, to imitate them (this is interpreted: see below).
Through their “vocal” and “linguistic” productions, their gaze that is both mobile and immobile, which seems to “dissect” the environment and people, and the sustained visual attention they give them, parrots gather around them the different family members and visitors.
By creating situations of joint visual attention through their “imitations” and by making “those around them” speak, they stimulate affiliative behaviors (see below), communication and dialogue.
Piper Rockelle Needed My Help Choosing A Parrot to Steal?
SOURCE:MARLENE MC’COHEN
Momentum for interaction
20We bring together, under this term, the manifestations of the child which lead to a reduction in the interpersonal distance with the partner, in particular the mother, bodily proximity, and peaceful and soothing contacts (Montagner, 1993-2006). The pet also has strong, frequent, and long-lasting interactions that stimulate and reactivate those of children.
Dogs are always attentive to familiar humans, receptive to their manifestations, ready to mobilize their impulses for interaction, and available for proximal interactions.
They constantly display behaviors that bring them closer to humans and that lead them to approach them. As soon as they see, hear, or smell a familiar person, they rush in his direction. No obstacle can stop them. This is what we observe, for example, when the familiar child comes home.
Constantly stimulated by affiliative behaviors (see below) and playful activities of children, dogs are always available to join them and participate in their games.
At all times and in all contexts, they accept, create, and reinforce interactions where their behavior is so adjusted to that of the familiar child that they are interpreted as emotional and affective tunings.
This can establish and develop close links between the two partners. The special bonds with a dog help the child to liberate without restraint all of his emotions and effects, but also his cognitive processes and his intellectual resources (see below).
21In cats, the impulses for interaction are like their search for eye-to-eye contact: alternative, variable, and modulated according to the time, context, and situation. But, when they are manifested, they are often “massive”, intrusive and possessive.
Cats then seek unrestrained hand-to-hand combat and invade human emotions and affectivity. They indeed give the impression or nourish the certainty that they understand and share their emotions, effects, and thoughts.
This is in particular what children say, draw, and write (Duboscq, 1995). The cat is thus a receptacle and an outlet that can help them overcome their psychological and relational difficulties.
22From their impulses to interaction, familiar horses can also be unique receptacles of the child’s emotions (Pelletier-Milet, 2004). They run to trot or gallop as soon as they perceive his arrival or his sound “signals”.
By their approach, their welcoming behavior, their way of soliciting bodily contact, and their affiliative behaviors (see below), they seem to listen carefully and understand their human partner. Again, the interactions are perceived to be tuned, not only by the child himself but also by the observers.
In addition, the reciprocal impulses for interaction lead to overlaps during which a “tonic-postural dialogue” (Wallon, 1957-1963), like no other, can take hold and develop, including with children who are “not like the others” (psychotic, autistic, “cerebral palsy” …), and who can then unlock their inner world, overcome their emotional insecurity and more or less develop some emotional security.
The interactions of these children with a horse, therefore, open another path that facilitates, creates, or strengthens emotional and affective tunings, which can lead to a “secure” attachment.
23Likewise, dolphins show irrepressible interacting moose towards humans, whether they are in the water, on the edge of a basin, or on a boat.
By their approaches (somersaults, jumps), their welcoming behavior (“greetings”), and the quality of the bodily contacts they initiate or accept (their skin is satiny), they too can unlock the world interior and install emotional security not only in “ordinary” children but also in psychotic or autistic children. A particular attachment can then develop.
24In parrots, the impulses for interaction are less evident. But they are real because these birds can perch on the arm or shoulder of a familiar person. In addition, through their “vocal” and “language” productions, they induce an approach at all times.
The proximal “dialogue” and the “words” that are exchanged often give children (and adults) the feeling that the words have the same meaning and meaning for the parrot as for themselves. It is therefore not surprising that a special attachment can weave between them.
Parrot facts for kids
Affiliative behaviors
Affiliative behaviors are social behaviors that are sometimes qualified as positive, that is to say, that they have a high probability of leading to long-term adjusted and tuned interactions.
They found the so-called socialization processes which regulate in particular the interactions within peer groups (for more details, see Montagner, 2006).
With regard to the relationships between humans and animals, two aspects are to be distinguished: on the one hand, the behavior of animals that humans of all ages interpret as adhesions to their actions, words, emotions, affects, and thoughts; on the other hand, the behavior of children in intra-family interactions, with peers, educators, teachers …
Children develop limitless representations about the ability of dogs and dolphins to adjust to their behaviors and to match their emotions, effects, and thoughts.
More than 80% of children between 6 and 11 years old perceive them as real partners (dogs) or potential partners (dolphins) whose manifestations indicate that they are happy, joyful, happy, or friendly (Montagner, 1995b, 2002b).
They say they are “happy”, “happy” or “happy” to meet them (dogs), or at the prospect of meeting them (dolphins). Certain animal behavior patterns are clearly decoded as affiliative.
In dogs, these are the direct and “frank” look, the open mouth without puckering of the muzzle, erect ears, gasps, and salivary discharge, “massive” licks, the paw (s) placed on the arms or thigh, wide swipes of the erect tail, peeps, juvenile behavior, “offerings” of objects.
In dolphins, these are the direct look, the half-open beak giving the appearance of “fun”, “greetings” (nods), contact with “satin” skin, antics, and “ballet shows”, voice clicks that “invite you to play”.
These specific patterns of dogs or dolphins stimulate, reactivate, structure, and organize the affiliative behaviors and the speech of children not only with regard to the animal but also with humans which they then find in the family environment, school, or elsewhere (this is particularly evident when we regularly follow the child in class from his first meetings with a dog.)
At the same time, they “get out” of their self-centered behaviors, of fear and flight, they do not ” avoid meeting and interacting more, they channel their overflow of movement (their “hyperactivity”) and their aggressiveness.
They reveal, over the weeks, unexpected capacities in the communication processes, the playful participation, the cooperation activities, the behavioral adjustments, the granted interactions, and the “conducts” of mediation.
This is also suggested by some observations made on the relationships between a dolphin and a child in a dolphinarium, then on the way home and school.
As we pointed out earlier, cats display a register of affiliative behaviors that are not observed in any other species. Purring, rubbing and rubbing, licking, runny nose, flattening on the chest, meowing, etc.
have such an evocative and “demonstrative” power of the supposed emotions and emotional impulses of the cat (friendship, tenderness, love, jealousy), that we commonly consider them as manifestations of seduction.
This interpretation (for many, it is a certainty) is supported by the absence of a “purpose” or a function clearly or solely specific to most of these behaviors.
Consequently, many humans, in particular children, attribute to these manifestations the same function and the same meaning as to their own affiliative behaviors: they are interpreted as adhesions of the animal to their acts, vocalizations, and words, to their emotions, effects and thoughts.
In response, they freely release their own behaviors, all of their core skills … and their fantasies. Horses have also, as we have seen, a whole range of behaviors interpreted as affiliative manifestations.
However, it is especially during the overlap that hidden, buried, or inhibited potentials can be revealed, especially in children who have developmental or behavioral disorders, and that behavioral, emotional, and affective constructions or reconstructions can be stimulated ( Pelletier-Milet, 2004)
Indeed, during this melee, the child must take into account the movements of the horse to adjust at any time his body balance and his gestures thanks to the information he collects from his somesthesia receptors, his proprioceptors, and his vestibular organs, in combination with visual and auditory information.
He then experiences new sensations and perceptions at the same time as he discovers himself and shows others unexpected capacities for regulation.
The tonic-postural and affiliative interactions during the overlap with a familiar horse can thus constitute a revealing structuring of capacities hitherto unreadable, scrambled, or inhibited in unstructured, unstructured, or polyhandicapped children whose state requires very medical care. heavy (psychotic, autistic, “cerebral palsy”).
30Of course, parrots do not have such a clear and functional affiliative register. However, their “language skills” can create in familiar humans the feeling or the certainty that they adhere to their emotions, effects, and thoughts, at least when the “words” of the bird are relevant to the situation or to the context, or when they correspond to events or dialogues experienced by one or other of the people.
The ability to reproduce and imitate
31As soon as they can, children try to reproduce and imitate the motor patterns and vocalizations of pets. For example, they get on all fours, crawl, jump over an obstacle, gasp with their tongue out, bark, bark, meow, “purr”, neigh, click like a dolphin or speak like a parrot.
“Conversely”, pets that are easy to condition, or more generally to use, also show themselves capable of reproducing and imitating (this is how it is interpreted) many human behaviors.
However, apart from conditioning or any other form of instrumentalization, pets seem to have a capacity for “spontaneous” imitation.
For example, untrained dogs bring back to their owner a stick, a ball, a cap… as if they were offering him the object in “reply” to the offerings they received or which they saw made to a third party. .
It also happens that a dog “hides” a toy behind or under a piece of furniture after having observed a parent who took this object from the familiar child and then hid it behind a door or on a shelf.
It is sometimes observed that, if the parent leaves, the animal will take the object in the mouth to “offer” it to the child. The dog can also “hide” one of the child’s toys as “if he were stuffing it”.
Even if these behaviors can be explained by “implicit” conditioning or by a succession of learning by trial and error, children (and adult witnesses) think and say that they are imitations: “ he saw us do it and he understood why -and- how we had this behavior he does like us.
The children then perceive the dog as an accomplice. A dog can also open a door by standing on its legs and pressing on the handle, ringing a bell by pulling the hooks on the rope that sets it in motion, running water from a tap by pressure on a lever, etc.
Here again, it can be the result of “implicit” conditioning or behavior acquired by trial and error. But, humans, especially children, think their pets mimic them and understand the meaning of what they are doing, thus manifesting their intelligence.
The same type of behavior can be observed in dolphins kept in tanks or evolving in “open water” and, to a lesser extent, in horses (Montagner, 2002b).
Rebel in conditioning, even if it is possible, the cat seems limited in its capacity to reproduce the behaviors of humans as well as those they impose. However, it can generate the idea or nourish the certainty that it imitates familiar people.
For example, when he takes the same “track” as his master in the outside environment, sits on the same chair, and places on the mat the field mouse he has just captured as if he were offering it, especially when a person usually “offers” objects that trigger a “playful predation” (plastic mouse, cork …).
We will not return to parrots except to underline the interest represented by the scientific study of the mechanisms of reproduction of words and sentences of such and such a language, and the real capacities of these birds to take into account in their “verbal emissions” from context, different partners and situations experienced.
Parrot facts for kids
The structured and targeted organization of the gesture
Parrot for kids
How the animal releases the cognitive processes and intellectual resources of the child
When a child releases his emotions and basic skills, he can make his cognitive processes and intellectual resources quite legible and functional (deciphering the meaning of events and the various messages of the environment, induction and deduction, reasoning, abstract thinking, critical thinking, humor …) in alliance with his imagination (Montagner, 1995a, 2002a, 2006).
By their capacities for behavioral adjustment, emotional tuning, complicity, and loyalty (see above), horses give children the feeling or the certainty that they have not only found a friend who “feels” them, hears them, and listens to them but that they also have the power to be “decision-making actors” who are free to move and able to take initiatives.
They discover that they are able to control the pace of the horse, overcome obstacles, enter previously inaccessible or insecure environments, and overcome fears or inhibitions.
The “child riders” are in a position to release and test their information processing, reasoning, and decision-making capacities in the third dimension of space, by being carried at all times by skills, knowledge, cognitive assessments, and resources of a “balanced” and “balancing” partner.
Admittedly, they guide the horses with the reins but, at the same time, they are guided by a partner who rarely makes mistakes and who, by his reassuring capacities of body adjustment, makes them understand what to do or not to do. , flexible and gentle, without aggressiveness, judgment, and sanction.
Basically, the familiar horse has a way of being and a way of doing things that give riders the feeling that he is flexible and intelligent. It stimulates and structures processes and functions of the human brain compared to those that dogs and cats reveal.
Dolphins are able to bypass, remove, or eliminate the obstacles that prevent them from accessing a hunting place or a place to meet humans (boat, pier, basin …).
They accurately detect them using their sonar. They are also able to adjust to the language behaviors and productions of humans out of the water and in an aquatic environment.
And also, to communicate by means of “trains” of sound and ultrasonic emissions which “are similar” to the sentences of human language and which in any case allow “linguistic vocal”.
Dolphins can search for and bring back objects named by the trainer, then use them in accordance with learning (“putting” a hat on their head, putting a buoy around their body, etc.),
or even accompany and support a human in difficulty. Even more than dogs, cats, or horses, dolphins can be partners that stimulate and structure in children a wide range of cognitive processes, “catalyze” intellectual resources, induce projections, transfers, and projects, and activate the imagination.
Indeed, the child has the impression of being even better heard and understood since the animal seems to speak to him and to “laugh” when he listens to him or answers him, in particular, to invite him to swim together or “ride it”.
It would be interesting to study what are the mechanisms and processes of cerebral functioning which can be structured during this relationship with psychotic, autistic, or polyhandicapped children, more generally those who have more or less deep “disturbances” of behavior (self-centered, avoidant, hyperactive, aggressor-destroyer, strange, etc.)
Conclusion
Pets play a significant, sometimes essential, role in unlocking the child’s inner world, and thus in removing blockages or inhibitions.
In interaction with an animal partner who does not judge, does not betray, and does not refer to personal or family difficulties, and who deploys a register of behaviors interpreted as signs of acceptance, the children can express what they feel, perceive, and think.
All things considered, and obviously, without confusion, the pet fulfills a role akin to that of a psychoanalyst, except that it gives the impression or the certainty of deliberately taking sides for the beings it shares with. daily activities.
By his attitude of apparent listening, the pet has the power to appease and reassure the child who speaks to him and looks at him, to give him or restore confidence, and to allow him to overcome or put his fears into perspective.
Relationships with pets allow the child to liberate without restraint the whole range of his emotions (joy, fear, anger, sadness, surprise, disgust) and his other emotional states (friendship, jealousy …)
At the same time, they structure the basic capacities (or basic skills) of the child which underpin their development and play an essential role in strengthening their initial attachment, establishing new attachments, regulating their behavior and behavior, and its socialization processes.
Contact with pets also plays a key role in structuring the child’s cognitive processes and in developing their intellectual resources. When they are partners, the behaviors of pets stimulate the child’s brain functioning (processing information from the outside world, structured reasoning, and organization of thought).
Curiosity, sustained and selective observation, intellectual concentration, and imagination activates the deductive and inductive processes in a moving thought.
In complete emotional security, pets thus give the child essential keys to knowledge and knowledge. They teach him to learn.
The behavioral analysis of the relationships between children and their pets is therefore particularly relevant for highlighting and studying the revealing and structuring power of animals on the child’s emotional and cognitive development.
It shows that, alongside formal commitments in explicit learning at home, at school, or elsewhere, interactions with pets require deductive and inductive processes in children that organize their reasoning and thought.
The presence of pets can alleviate suffering and fear
In children with psychiatric and multiple disabilities, the establishment of a relationship with a pet is accompanied by a reduction or non-manifestation of the usual signs of emotional insecurity.
At the same time, we see the development of signs of emotional security, that is to say, the orientation of the gaze and the body towards the animal partner, the acceptance and initiation of proximal interactions and bodily contacts, the smile, and other related behaviors.
We must, therefore, consider the presence of pets in the different places of life, education, and care of human beings who are locked in their suffering, their fears, or their relational and psychic difficulties, or who do not manage to overcome them. (Vernay, 2003; Pelletier-Milet, 2004).
More usually, sustained contact with a pet can have soothing, anxiolytic, and reassuring effects in children who experience a destabilizing event, such as death or a family breakdown.
