Obviously, we have some biased opinions about this. Why every child should have a
pet? Okay, we've been taking some flak. -Trouble with... -Okay. I've been. I have
gotten in trouble with a few parents because we put up a video a while back
about how to convince your parents to get you a dog. Now before you resist too
much, just go watch it, okay? Click on that little... It'll queue it up for you so that
you can watch it right after this video. And you'll see that maybe it's not quite
so threatening as it sounds. Because as a parent you're like, "I'm not sure I want
my kids to have a dog." -So, why would we want our kids to have a
pet? -There's some pretty good answers to that. Pets give you an opportunity to
practice some things that are really important to life. -Especially to learn
for adulthood. -Right. Like responsibilities for example. Now, mom.
This is why you're not so sure you want a dog, right? Because you know who's gonna
end up taking care of this animal. Right? Is this true? -There is so much
truth. -You were the mom through (now) two dogs in our home. Mom is the one who
takes the primary responsibility for that dog. Now, this is not necessarily bad
news, okay? Because you can use that as an opportunity to teach your kids certain
things. Like responsibility or budgeting or feeding or care or whatever it is
that that pet needs your child gets to take some responsibility for that. I had
a mom I was working with. Vicki, you had this beautiful idea. I thought it was
awesome. -Okay. -She had 2 kids. -Alright. -She told her 2 kids, "I have 4 mouths
to feed tonight." Okay, do the maths for a minute. Mom, dad, brother, sister. -Okay. -Well
those might be the 4. But this dog is helpless. So, if he
doesn't have anything to eat, I'm going to make sure that his mouth is one of the
mouths that I feed tonight. -Mm-hmm. -Now that's pretty brilliant. -Yeah. Yeah.
-Okay. No kid has ever died by missing dinner. Alright? So, we're not
advocating starving your child. But what you can get to is look I'm going to
feed four mouths tonight. If one of those is the dog then you're on your own. But I
trust you to be able to come up with something there. -One, I think... Thing about
responsibility that I love is it's not... A lot of the stuff that we have to do as
adults, you have to do out of inconvenience. And sometimes taking care
of that... Taking care of a pet teaches you to do some things out of
inconvenience simply because it's your responsibility. -Right. You don't feel like
doing it. You're too tired you had a bunch of homework to do during the day.
Well, that's the weather report. -Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that's one way you can talk
about it in your family. It's just the weather report. We still have to get the
animal fed. -Yeah. -They still need to care. So, it teaches some really great life
principles as a result. -One of the things I love about having had a dog
in our home when our kids were little is just the supportive relationship that
becomes developed between the children and the dog. So, we have 4
children and we got our dog... She lived with us for 14 and a half years. And we
got her when our youngest was one. So, they are from 1 to 8 years old our kids
were. -Yeah. When we first got the dog. -When we first got the dog. So, this dog was
there through all of the teenage years for all of them into the young adult
life of some of them. And it was so interesting you know, we had a few stormy
days with some of our teenagers. "Dr Paul and Vicki had stormy days with their
kids?" -Might have been at least one or two times I can think of when a child
wouldn't speak to us for 3 days. -Hey, you guys. How do you think we know this
stuff? This is what you learn a book at school, learning
in the trenches. -But you know, one of the most beautiful things is when he wasn't
talking to us. He would go and he'd sit with the dog. He would tell the dog
things. And when the dog's life she became very old and very ill. It was so
interesting we were kind of reflecting as a family. And every one of our kids
said, "You know, Crystal was who I could talk to." There were times when she was
the only one I felt like I could talk to. And they would have like these are
conversations and tell her things. So, there's this real relationship of
friendship of support both for the dog and the dog for them. -Look what this dog
was able to teach our kids too. Because she never judged them. She didn't even
talk back. She just listened. -Right. -And she loved them no matter what and even
if. -And if they hurt her on accident or whatever, she was this quick to come back
and forgive. So, we used that as an example in our family about look how
quickly she forgives when somebody does something. You say you're sorry. She's
she's licking you and sitting there right on your lap again. She wants to
forgive you as quick as possible. -One of the reasons that people don't want to
get a pet is because they know something about the inevitability of what you just
mentioned. Crystal, our first dog lived with us for 14 and a half years.
She saw Lindy through from being a one-year-old baby to be his teenager.
Almost 16 years old. She basically raised these kids with us.
And we developed real relationships with her. So, when the time came for her to
pass on, it was hard. -It was really hard. -Probably in fact, we're watching a movie
the other night. It's called Marley & Me. That was a bad idea.
No, actually, it's a really good movie but it tugs at your heartstrings because it
walks you through the process of losing a beloved pet. -Right. You know, we
can't get out of this. If we love people and have relationships, we're going to
have to deal with loss of loved ones. And having a pet, as hard as it is, it is a
really good place to practice and to process that whole experience of losing
someone we love. -So, watch this: The reason you might be
avoiding it could be one of the best reasons to do it. Because that now
becomes an opportunity to learn a real life lesson about loss. You're probably
going to lose this pet rather than the pet losing you. I mean... Unless you're
really older you know you have some accident happen or something. Most likely
you're going to lose the pet. -And one other thing that I like through the loss is it
gives you an opportunity to talk about even after they're gone, to celebrate the
fun. To talk about how fun it was or "Do you remember when so-and-so when our dog
did this and things." Which i think is a really great skill to learn that even
when our loved ones are gone, we can still talk about them we can remember
them. They can be a part of our life still. -Once you have the relationship...
I've heard it and I love this quote. "The only way to take the sorrow out of
death is to take the love out of life." And for this experience and to have that
kind of a relationship, you really don't run into a pet owner who has put their
pet to rest who says, "I wish I never would have even
had that pet. Because the pain is worth it when you consider all of the
value that happens with the other benefits that we've talked about. And
we're not telling you that you have to get a pet. But we are teaching your kids
how to convince you to get a pet so you might want to start thinking about it in
the ways that we've suggested here. We were serious earlier when we said watch
that next video about how to convince your parents to get you a dog. You're
going to see some things in there that you totally agree with as a parent. Just like
you will in the other aspects of our parent coaching program. Go to the
description below and get signed up for your free parenting breakthrough call.
We'll see you on the inside.