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Pets Help Children Reduce Stress Levels

Lori Davidson | 16 February, 2022


          
            Homeschooling and the benefit of pets for kids mental health

Pets are loyal, friendly, and submissive. These are the three major reasons for a family to get a pet. But a fourth reason that's getting traction quite well among young students is the calming effect pets, especially dogs, have on them. "They are looking forward to having a pet during the Covid-19 pandemic, to get their class or homework done themselves," as was stated by Ellie from ClassTaker.

Adrian is a freelance writer experienced in student psychology, pets, and family planning.

How Pets Help Children Reduce Their Stress During COVID-19 Pandemic and How Dogs trained to comfort nervous people, help kids get COVID-19 vaccines 

 

1. Reduce School-Related Stress

Remote schooling or not, Covid-19 has changed individual households to war zones. While some of the students are adapting or even enjoying the remote schooling scenario, there is a massive group that wants to get back to the school due to the sheer workload being assigned to them just because they are in the house, assuming they are always available, like the best homework help websites.

Dogs and any kind of pets can reduce assignment related stress of students just by being on their side. The responsibilities associated with keeping a pet is quite rewarding for a student and their brain can emulate the satisfactory emotion for completing assignments too.

 

2. Increased Productivity

Studies show that dogs can enlighten a virtual meeting or class to the extent that the performance of the students increases manifolds. Not only the classes during covid-19, but a dog can also offer its friendship to a student who is seeking a quick break during the classes and homework.

Dogs have always been a source of support to humans. As a hunting partner thousands of years ago, as emotional support now. Petting a dog can lower blood pressure, heart rate, and reduce anxiety. Just 10 minutes of petting can have a significant impact on a student’s productivity.

 

3. Companionship and Support

In today’s busy world, it’s only natural to not commit that much amount of time that our ancestors have provided for us. Having a pet around the students can help them develop the feelings of empathy and companionship from an early age.

As a pet doesn’t give away orders and is quite comfortable being bossed around, it makes a child feel important and responsible for its actions. 

It’s statistically true that the kids, who are emotionally attached to their pets are more prone to build stronger relationships with other humans including their classmates. Students sometimes also talk to their pets without the fear of rejection, which builds them up better to become a confident leader in their future.

 

4.  Being More Active

The Covid-19 pandemic has normalized staying inside the home even for little students, who aren’t supposed to. It’s known that a dog can have significant mental effects, but it can also help build a stronger exercise regime for the students. Even if they don’t walk or run with the dog every day, having a playful fight over the couch also develops strong physical and mental bonds.

A statistic among dog and non-dog owners has shown that overall activity count and average activity per minute is significantly higher in dog owners. Despite the fact that the families that owned the dogs are more active in their lives, the ambiguity of the conclusion persists. Whether the families that own dogs are more active, or the families that are more active own a dog is still in research.

But it’s even evident that children with dogs are more active in their regular lives than without one. And if a student walks their dog regularly, they take 1700 more steps than an average non-dog-owning student. A 25% increase.

 

5.    Togetherness

Our ancestors domesticated wolves that were too friendly, thousands of years ago, and by selective breeding they created the dogs that we see today. They had a symbiotic relationship with the dogs. They used them for their sense of smell, hearing, and eyesight to get an edge while hunting in return for safety and food.

Today, their relationship has changed a lot. While pets and humans still have the symbiotic relationship, it has progressed to a more mental aspect than being a physical one. The students feed and nurture the dogs in order to derive a sense of togetherness with them.

The satisfaction of seeing them happy around us, their childlike behaviors make students relate to them more than adults. Students see the pets more like their friends than a pet.

This sense of togetherness helps students reduce the stress that they might develop from over homework and online classes, where their performance is directly being monitored by the parents.

 

6.    How Dogs Help Nervous People

Service dogs are specially trained dogs that help nervous people calm themselves down.

Anxiety service dogs, the specific ones that get trained to guide anxious people, can sense anxiety attacks even before the victim. During the anxiety attack, if the person is on medications, they can fetch the Medi pack. If the nervous victim needs help beyond the ability of their guide dog, it can be trained to fetch a person too.

As dogs naturally have a calming effect, whenever a person feels nervous, the trained canine licks and paws the person to calm them down.

In general, the dogs that get trained for such jobs, remain quite friendly towards their environment and seldom lose their calm. 

 

7.    How Dogs Help Kids Get Covid-19 Vaccines

In central Texas, more than 1000 children between the age 5 to 11 have already been vaccinated due to dogs. It might sound funny, but it isn’t. The puppies are helping the Covid warriors fight it off with timely doses to students.

It’s stressful for a child to get vaccine shots. All Over the world, every child fears getting shots. But in this particular clinic in Central Texas, a dog named Skye is making all the difference. The children even expressed that it was much easier to look and pet Skye than watching the shots getting injected. It has visibly helped them calm their nerves. Most of the young students even expressed a desire to come back soon for the second dose.

 

The Bottom Line:

Dogs are helping students all over the world to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. As they get buried under the ever-increasing volume of homework, dogs are providing the much-needed support they want and deserve.

Trained dogs are also helping nervous persons and children calm themselves in distress.

 

 

 

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