Rats and children

[jam]

Not only is it important to teach kids about gentleness and nurturing and care for our smallest dependents, but it is also incredibly rewarding. How lovely for a little child to see a timid creature respond to his empathic, caring gestures. To all those who teach their children, thank you.

 

[RatsForever]

Excellent points SQ.

fftopic: For some unknown reason this post reminds me of my parents teaching me from a very young age to respect animals and show them kindness. I had birds as my first pet, and I can still remember my mom and dad always reminding me to be very gentle when handling them. Even my mom who was not a pet fan, made certain I was careful and gave my pets proper care. My parents taught me very important lessons.

 

[lilratsy43]

My parents just let me do whatever I wanted with my guinea pigs. I was always very good with them, I knew how to hold them without hurting them, yes at 6 I was able to do this. My 2 year old sister was not able to understand this concept, I think to her they were just stuffed animals that moved. She nearly drowned my 1st guinea pig and about 1.5 years later, her and a neighbor boy accidently killed one of the guinea pigs! I was so upset!!!! My parents were not mad at her for this, they never really punished her for her actions...I mean to them it was just a guinea pig.

Lucky my sister had me. I think she has become a good animal caregiver over the years, although she has never had to care for an animal all by herself, I do believe that when she does decide to get her first pet (which will probably be a dog) she will do right by that pet...if not, she always has me to put her in her place! I would definately trust her to hold and play with my rats.

 

[BorealHiker]

Soon after I got rats I had an incident where a young rat was dropped from a short height. She seemed fine at first but was dead in her cage the next morning. Ever since then I've been paranoid about rats falling.
I think it's no different than when a person falls. Just picture in your mind the difference in sensation between falling a few feet and jumping down the same distance. Whether or not you're prepared for the impact makes a big difference.

Me too. The image of Rascal falling off my wife's shoulder (even though he probably suffered a stroke or heart attack) has left a painful mark on me, and was just a terrible thing to see. I'm not over it. I like to see to it that I'm wearing "sticky" or "tacky" upper clothing, rather than slippery fabrics. They all like to watch what I'm doing in the kitchen, and a fall from my 6ft height could be really bad. I'm also strict about not having them on me when I'm dealing with open pots of boiling stuff on the stove! Not so much a slip, but any sudden startling noise could set them off, I've found. Not going to let it happen.

 

[Ichigo]

Soon after I got rats I had an incident where a young rat was dropped from a short height. She seemed fine at first but was dead in her cage the next morning. Ever since then I've been paranoid about rats falling.
I think it's no different than when a person falls. Just picture in your mind the difference in sensation between falling a few feet and jumping down the same distance. Whether or not you're prepared for the impact makes a big difference.

Me too. The image of Rascal falling off my wife's shoulder (even though he probably suffered a stroke or heart attack) has left a painful mark on me, and was just a terrible thing to see. I'm not over it. I like to see to it that I'm wearing "sticky" or "tacky" upper clothing, rather than slippery fabrics. They all like to watch what I'm doing in the kitchen, and a fall from my 6ft height could be really bad. I'm also strict about not having them on me when I'm dealing with open pots of boiling stuff on the stove! Not so much a slip, but any sudden startling noise could set them off, I've found. Not going to let it happen.

This happened to a person I know who used to have rats. She was cooking and then the rat just jumped of her shoulder. Well you can imagine what happened. It landed in the frying pan :sad3: She went straight to the vet, but they had to put him to sleep :cry3: Keeping that story in mind, I never ever have the rats on me when I cook.

 

[Marylou]

SQ:

you should take your rats to school as an educational project for the children...

 

[Little_Vixen]

Very good rules. It does often depend on the child, and their age and maturity of course, but very smart rules for Anyone to have.

My boyfriend has a 5year old who is very very mature for 5. I was posting on a rat site about something and he was waiting for me to finish so we could go play the ship game until his daddy got home. And I'd asked if he wanted to see what I was writing about and showed him some online pictures of some pet rats. He said they were cute and while we were in his room making ships he asked if I ever wanted any more and I'd said yes, he said he'd want some too. He's only 5 so I told him it takes a lot to care for animals like that and the sweet little boy had the smarts to say only when he was older though. if I do get any rats I'll be using these rules, he's great with animals but he can forget to be gentle when he has a fit or tantrum

 

[Sillyfyre]

As some of you have sayed it all depends on the child and how they where tought to handle any animal, plus if they are young that the care giver watchs them with the animal.

I myself grow up around many kind of anamils we had buggies, conarys, ginapigs, rabbits, chickens, and a number of cats and dogs. When we got older my parints got two parrits. My parints made sure that me and my brother know how to care and handle all the animals we've had/have. I know there where times that we where "bad" when it came to a few animals, but my parints made sure that we where corret in our mistakes and if need be punshed for it.

With my two children (10 and 7) I've tryed really hard to show them how to interact with any kind of animal. Living where we are now we've only had some fish, a buggie, and a hamster. I always showed them how to handle them and how to care for them and I was there when they did. If they where oldanuf I did leave them "alone" with the animal it they could show me how to handle it right first. Even then I had them with in sight.

Now with the girls, my dughter is eager to hold one of them or both, but for now I'm only letting her pet them if I'm there and the girls are in their cage. My son..well he's still warming up to them, but he dose talk to them everymore in a sweet little voice.

Now the little one I babysit, she's got a dog, but I don't think I'll be letting her any where near the girls till she much older and undstand "be nice". I've got quite a few scaches from her trying to ticle me even after I tell her to be nice.

Thought I've seen kids that the parints have tryed as hard as they can to teach them to be nice to animals and they just think they are toys and do as they please with them.