Children and dogs: Exploring the impact of canine interaction on socio-cognitive development
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31074/gyntf.2024.2.45.62Keywords:
child development, child-dog interactions, pet attachment, dog ownership, animal-assisted interventionsAbstract
Dogs are popular pets among families with children. From the parents’ point of view, dog ownership can help children to become more mature and responsible. Children can develop a close relationship with the family dogs, becoming involved in their care and participating in daily activities together. Children can also meet dogs outside their homes, for example, as part of educational programmes. The aim of our study is to review how rich behavioural interactions with dogs (e.g., playing, petting, talking to the dog) can have an effect on typical children’s socio-cognitive development and the psychological and physiological mechanisms behind these effects. Positive effects include increased social competence, improved reading skills and higher motivation to learn, which may be explained by the child’s attachment to the pet and the effect of social buffering. In addition to the potential benefits, we also mention the costs of dog ownership in relation to child-dog interactions. Dog bites and allergies represent a significant risk, and in the case of problem behaviour or financial problems, the presence of a dog can lead to stress in the family, and the focus of the parents’ attention may be diverted from the child. We also review the main methodological limitations of studies on human-animal interactions, such as small sample sizes, small effect sizes, lack of control for confounding effects, self-report bias, lack of longitudinal studies, variability in dog behaviour and husbandry habits, and different study methods. We conclude that a large proportion of the studies on this topic are correlational, which does not allow causality to be established. Although dog ownership may be associated with certain developmental benefits, this does not necessarily mean that the presence of a dog directly causes these outcomes. Other factors, such as family environment, socioeconomic status and parental involvement, may also play a significant role, but these have rarely been examined in previous research.
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