Some things cannot be taught in school or in books. Responsibility, for instance, needs a more hands-on approach for a child (or even an adult) to learn.
This is why the demographic for pets are usually families with children. According to Healthy Pets, there are a lot of things that kids can learn from keeping another living thing alive.
Responsibility is the most obvious one, as pets need daily feeding, exercise, bath, potty time and even clean-up. If your kids are old enough, they can learn to care for another creature by doing these things for their pets while younger ones can be responsible for feeding the animals and playing with them on a regular basis.
Still, there are more things that children can learn from having a pet (or two) like trust, compassion, and respect, which is why choosing the right pet for your child is an important decision to make.
What makes the best pets for your family? Here are some suggestions from Parenting:
Large dogs like labs and golden retrievers are friendly and active, so they can encourage children to spend time playing outdoors (and that is a plus in this gadget-driven world).
Cats are quiet and relatively easy to care for. However, kids have to be more careful around them because they don't think twice about scratching.
Hamsters are fun, but you need to see to it that your kids will actually have to take on more responsibilities for these tiny creatures as their cages need frequent cleaning. Also, it might break your kids' hearts that they have really short life spans.
Fish are pretty to look at, but bowl and aquarium cleanings are a lot of work. Likewise, they can't be handled so kids could get bored caring for them.
Turtles are more fun than fishes; your kids can actually play with them from time to time. However, they do carry salmonella, which can really be dangerous.
