Companion Animal Bonding, Children's Home Environments, and Young Children's Social Development

These exploratory studies focused on child-pet bonding and the effect of the quality of chldren's home environments on the social development of preschoolers. Survey data from 88 parents regarding the parents, their homes, and their preschool child provided empirical support for the hypothesis that young children derive developmental benefits from their interactions with pets. Additional data from home interviews with some families provided further support for the general premise that there are developmental benefits to children from interacting with pets. Benefits were primarily in the social domain, and involved social competence, empathy, and attitudes towards pets. "Pet bonding" appeared to be a stronger determinant of pet-associated benefits than pet ownership. Other family elements, including Environmental Assessment Index measures of the quality of home environments, were associated with pet ownership and bonding and the children's development. Children with pets and children with better home environments had higher age-adjusted child development scores. Further research is recommended for the purposes of replicating these results and clarifying their complex linkage. (RH) ********************************************************x************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * *********************************************************************** U S DEPARTMENT OT EDUCATION Once of Educabonai Research and Improvement OOUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) ha, been tepRxh.Ced as Xiehc, vdocument prnIhe 'pe,Son Or organzat,00 ony.nafing C Minh, changes have been made to improve reproduction Quality Pants of v.ev. of opinions stated In II IS do" men' do not neceSSanIy represent Of RI posthon Or 0010 COMPANION ANIMAL BONDING, CHILDREN'S HOME ENVIRONMENTS, AND YOUNG CHILDREN'S SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. Robert H. Poresky and Charles Hendrix Department of Human Development and Family Studies 312 Justin Hall College of Human Ecology Kansas State University Manhattan, Kansas 66505 Presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development April 27-30, 1989 Kansas City, Missouri "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY Abstract TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)"TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)" This research focuses on (1) child-pet bonding, rather than just "pet ownership", and (2) the quality of children's home environments as they affect social development. There are a number of arguments for the importance of the child-animal bond for children's social development. Levinson (1978) concluded that "closeness to animals can reduce alienation" and that children's empathy, self-esteem, self-control and autonomy could be promoted by raising pets. A positive relationship between pet ownership and children's social sensitivity and interpersonal trust was reported by Hyde, Kurdek and Larson (1983). The quality of children's home environments, including the presence of animals, has been linked with both the concurrent and longitudinal cognitive development of preschool children (Bradley and Caldwell, 1984; Poresky, 1987). Two key factors for this research on factors affecting young children's social development were (1) reaching beyond "pet ownership" to child-pet bonding as the operationalization of the companion animal bond, and (2) assessing the quality of the children's home environments. The Companion Animal BonCing Scale (Poresky, Hendrix, Mosier and Samuelson, 1987) and the Environmental Assessment Index (Poresky, 1987) were the key independent measures in these exploratory studies. 2 The first study was a parent survey (n = 88) of the 3-6 year old children's involvement with pets, their home environments and the effects of this involvement on the children. The parent survey included the above measures and our adaptation of the Denver Prescreening Developmental Questionnaire (Frankenberg, 1975), which attained a Cronbach Alpha coefficient of 0.85, and the Iowa Social Competency Scales (ISCS) (Preschool Form) (Pease, Clark, Cra>e, 1981). During the home visit study brief verbal vignettes with affective and cognitive probes of the child's perceptions were utilized to assess the children's empathy. The child's companion animal bond and the quality of the child's home environment and their two-way interaction were associated with the children's age-adjusted performance on the adapted Denver Prescreening Developmental Questionnaire. Children with stronger bonds and higher home assessments had higher age-adjusted developmental scores. The children's pet bond and home environments were associated with their parent's estimates of their social development. Their bonding scores were positively correlated with their "reassurance", "social activator", and inversely corelated with their "uncooperative" ISCS scores. The children with the stronger bonds also had significantly lower scores on the "hypersensitive" ISCS scale and higher "reassurance" scores than children with lesser bonds. Significant correlations were also found between the quality of the children's home environments and their "social activator", "hypersensitive", "reassurance" and the mothers' "social activator" ISCS factors. Their home ratings were non-significantly correlated with the empathy score and older children had higher higher empathy sub-scores. These results are viewed as providing support for the hypothese that young children's social development is influenced by their relationship with a pet and the quality of their home environments.