How to teach a child to respect animals?

My daughter is 2 and whenever she sees a cat or a dog, she pinch it, grab its hair or scare it. I love my daughter but I haaaaaaaaaaaate when she does that, it really upset me. I have tried to explain to her and punish her but nothing works.

How did you taught your children to respect animals (we don;t have animals at home so maybe she doesn't realise it's alive a feel the pain)

Thanks for your help

Two is a bit young to learn respect for other living things but here's how I work it out with children (And adults. Adults need to be taught to respect my pets too). Whenever somebody insists on disrespecting one of my animals, I tell them that I will treat them exactly how they treat the animal. If they're nice to it, then I'm nice to them. If they're rude, then I'm rude. If they're abusive, then I'm throwing them out of the house until they find it in them to not be so abusive. On that last part, you shouldn't throw children out of the house (adults are fine). I just make them leave the room and refuse to give them attention when they want something. I just feed them, clothe them and ignore them until they act more respectful to the animals (Or people. I do the same thing if they disrespect people).

If your daughter is only 2 and she doesn't listen to you, you have more problems than just "oh poor animals". I would suspect she won't listen to you on many other things either. Punishment is never the best choice of teaching kids, or adults for that matter. Use positive reinforcement, in other words - use rewards to increase desired behavior, instead of punishment.

Well, I have given this allot of thought over the years, with our girls, and as how I came to be with the way I treat and feel towards animals. I think the first thing, its just to present the right example. Most children mimic their parents. Secondly, anytime your child does anything you consider unkind, stop her, explain why its bad, and show her a better way, To pet a cat, dig, our whatever it may be. Then make sure to lead by example. I remember running around as a child, scaring the cats we had, and then watching how my mom acted around and with them.

Just my couple of pennies on the subject.

There are two ways to get a 2-year-old to understand something. One is smack the kid when she does something wrong. This method works very well. It certainly stops the kid from doing whatever she is not supposed to do. However, there will be pscychological scars which will take a long time to heal.

The other way is to teach by example. If you want the kid to stroke a cat with love, then you, yourself, will just have to do it. Of course, if you hate cats then you have a new problem on your hands. Let's hope that in this case, the child is not being influenced by her parent's actual attitude to animals.

My children were born with pets in the home. We never had any animal issues, I guess we were lucky. When they were a little older than your daughter they were already doing pet chores. I don't neccessarily think your daughter doesn't listen to you. I don't think she understands. Maybe animals are strange to her and this is why she behaves this way. Try slowly introducing her to animals, let her watch you as well as others with animals.

(07-31-2012 08:04 AM)Ram Wrote:  If your daughter is only 2 and she doesn't listen to you, you have more problems than just "oh poor animals". I would suspect she won't listen to you on many other things either. Punishment is never the best choice of teaching kids, or adults for that matter. Use positive reinforcement, in other words - use rewards to increase desired behavior, instead of punishment.

Wow thank you for the unsolicited advice on my general discipline at home, My daughter listen to me, but she is young, after two minutes, she forgets and is brutal again. I don;t suspect that she will say the "f" you word to me by the age of three because of that. How judgemental was that?

For the others, thank you for you advices, I will try to do that, and see if there is any improvement .

Hi Laura, While I can't offer advice for you & your daughter, re: respect for animals, as I have never had children, but I do have a thought I have held for several years in this area.

I do a lot of volunteer work on behalf of animals & over the years, I have seen, read & heard of some horrific abuses placed upon God's creatures. I will take but a minute to offer up my thoughts.

I feel a schools curriculum should have a must take class on animals, where history, care, some some rudimentary training & most importantly, respect is learned of animals. There is a lot of proof that many serial killers, began by abusing, torturing animals when they were children. So I feel at an early age, when they would both enjoy & absorb a class with respect to animals. They may think it as fun, yet they would learn respect for animals.

Now, having no children, as mentioned, I was close to my nieces as they were raised & what my sister & brother in law would do is gently take my niece's hand & say "No" several times, & if they were reaching for anything breakable or their pets, they would do this & gradually, they learned not to do this. I hope this works, or you find your answer in dealing with this.

Laura, thanks for allowing me this & I wish you, your daughter (& pets!) the very best !

At 2 years old, she is too young to understand. I would teach her through example with stuffed animals. Stroking a stuffed animal and treating that toy with gentleness. Perhaps, that will help her to learn to be gentle to animals. But it sounds like she just needs to play and get all her energy out. I would wait until she is about 4-5 years before really teaching her about how to be gentle with animals.

Would you be able to volunteer at the animal shelter since you don't have pets at home? She could see how everyone else treats the animals. Point out when you see someone loving up one of the animals. Relate it to how you show her love. Such as, "Look how she is holding that kitty in her lap. See how she is petting the kitty very gently. The kitty loves to be petted gently, just like you like to have hugs from Mommy." We've had to do this sort of thing with my daughter. She is 7 and has autism. Kids with autism have a hard time reading and relating to other's emotions. That includes animals. She gets a lot of practice because we have a dog and two cats.

Although she is still small I would try telling her repeatedly that animals like to be treated equal.
I would then g on to say :would you like to be treated like this if you were him?".
With time you will be surprised how much she actually understands and these problems will stop with time.
You just need to be patient and not stress too much about this. Good luck!