Teaching Kids to Be Gentle With Pets

We had a little incident the other day. Someone suddenly decided, after several months of proper kitten handling, that kittens could fly and gave the idea a test drive. Luckily, the kitten wasn’t hurt, but I knew we needed to have a little talk.

(The little guy who decided that flying kittens were a great idea is under six, so it wasn’t a case of animal cruelty or anything. Just a lack of understanding. Still, kittens deserve to walk around without fear, so I needed a way to teach the little guy to be gentle with pets.)

This is how I handled the situation:

I sent him to time out while I checked to be sure the kitten was okay. Then, we sat down and talked about how kittens were very small, very delicate and needed to be handled gently. We talked about ways to play with kittens and looked at the kitten to verify that he did not have wings.

Next, the little guy sat and thought about three things he could do with kittens and then shared them with the family. He came up with petting them, giving them kitten treats and putting them in their crate if they were getting into mischief. We all agreed those were good things to do with kittens.

Finally, I sent him to find the kitten and apologize to it. He very seriously did so and, when the kitten licked him, announced that he was forgiven.

For a few days after the kitten incident, we started out each morning with a discussion about being gentle with pets and listed a few things we could do with them, like petting them or hugging them very carefully.

He seems to have gotten the message and talks to the kittens about how he will handle them even without adult reinforcement now, but I still supervise kitten/child interactions very closely.

Do you have any tips for teaching kids to be gentle with pets?