Teach Your Kids How To Take Care Of Their Kittens
Most children love pets. The good thing about allowing them to have pets is that you can teach them about responsibility without it seeming like you are forcing them to do a chore. Taking care of small pets such as cats and kittens, can be a wonderful responsibility for your children. Kids don’t really mind if taking care of their pets takes much of their free time because they will enjoy so much playing, petting and cuddling the little critters - it won’t even seem like work to them at all.
Getting Your Kids Involved
As an adult, you probably understand that having cats and kittens in the household is definitely enjoyable but, it is extremely time consuming. If you feel your children can handle it, then by all means pass off that responsibilty to them!
First and foremost, find out how your kids feel about taking care of the cats and kittens. Doing so will help you to better understand whether or not they are ready for the task. Ask them questions such as “Are you going to feed and give the cats and kittens water every day? Will you be ready to help take care of the kittens if they get sick? Will you clean up after the cats on a daily basis?” Their answers may surprise you!
If you think they are ready, then go ahead and give them specific tasks to help you take care of the household felines! This means feeding the cats and kittens, grooming them, cleaning up after them and maintaining the litter box. Delegating these small, but time consuming tasks will give you more time to do other things.
In general, cats and kittens are not too difficult to take care of so, this means less supervision for you. But you should be sure to discuss with them they specific jobs they will be doing, and make sure they understand all of the whos, whats, whens, wheres and whys that go along with the task. Discuss all ideas of taking care of the cats and kittens with your kids openly. Do not make the mistake of simply giving a list of duties and times. This could quickly turn into dreaded chores and the children might slack off because they feel they are being told what to do. Explain the importance of giving the right care to your pets. If necessary, purchase them one or two books on basic cat care and have them read the book before taking over their cat care duties. Then together, come up with a cat care plan that you all (including the cats and kittens) can live with.
When getting kids involved with care of cats and kittens, you basically want them to own the tasks and make it a pleasure experience for them, you and especially the cats!
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