How Owning a Dog Can Benefit Your Child

Thinking of getting a dog? You know your child wants a dog to play with but did you know that the love and companionship of a dog can have long lasting effects going far beyond their ability to entertain and amuse?

The current research into dog assisted therapy has turned the humble pet dog into an emotional, educational and physical resource. Everything from autism to reading ability has been tested with the use of therapy dogs. Excellent programs exist that have demonstrated a link between the interaction with dogs and improved social and reading skills.

It makes sense that even healthy children may experience benefits from owning a dog. What are some ways dogs affect children emotionally, socially and physically?

Can Your Dog Teach Your Child to Read?

A program was started that introduced the concept of children reading to dogs. The idea was that the child would be calmed by the presence of the dog as well as stimulated by the contact without the pressures of reading to a teacher or a peer.

The children loved the experience and the program creators noted that reading skills, including stuttering, improved. While not all reading problems can be corrected with a dog’s company it is certainly a matter of interest to parents.

Owning a Dog Can REDUCE Allergies

Several pediatric experts have disowned the theory that early exposure to pets is a prime cause of allergies in children. In fact, the PAWSitive Interaction organization arranged a summit that included information suggesting exposure to pets by pregnant women and babies born into households with two or more pets actually had less allergies to the pets and other allergens than children not exposed.

Dogs Improve Social and Emotional Well-being

Anyone who has owned a dog can attest to the relaxing effects of owning a pet. Studies have shown that petting an animal can reduce anxiety and tension. The companionship of a dog can also help children build self-esteem and ease social interactions.

Dogs provide non-judgmental company and unwavering loyalty. To young children facing a world in which they are struggling to find their place a dog can help them develop a sense of themselves while also decreasing feelings of loneliness and encouraging empathy.

Physical Benefits for Children with Dogs

While physical therapies and assistance programs commonly incorporate dogs even healthy children can benefit physically from owning a dog.

Dogs demand a certain amount of physical play and care. Children may be more motivated to be physically active when they are with a dog than without.

While dogs cannot be the only answer to serious conditions, owning a dog can surely provide many benefits to your child when wisely selected and trained to compliment the family’s lifestyle and the child’s personality. Having a devoted dog in the home can contribute to a parent’s efforts to raise their child into a caring and balanced adult.

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What Are The Options For Aspergers Treatment?

This is a question that I am regularly asked by the readers of the newsletter that I write for parents who have children with Aspergers. The first point to say is that in my opinion the signs of Aspergers can't be "cured" outright. Nor do I think that focusing on "cure" is helpful for parents or children. As to "cure" someone applies that they are somehow ill or sick in the first place. Children with Aspergers are not sick or ill but just different – but only in the way that we are all different and have our own "certain ways". And isn't that what makes the world such an exciting place? But that is a whole discussion in itself and not the focus of this article, so I won't go further off topic now!

That said about "cures", there are a number of options to look at when it comes to Aspergers Treatment. Most children benefit from early specialized interventions that focus on behavior management and social skills training. Many children with Aspergers can learn the unwritten rules of socialization and communication when they are taught in an explicit and rote fashion. Similar to the way students learn foreign languages. Because for children with Aspergers the main challenge is that these types of social skills (such as what to say in certain situations) don't come naturally to them. But children with Aspergers tend to have excellent cognitive ability so can learn these skills just fine with the right "teachers" (this can be in school but even more so at home with family and friends).

Children with Aspergers may also learn how to speak in a more natural rhythm, as well as how to interpret communication techniques used by others, such as gestures, eye contact, tone of voice, humor and sarcasm. Behavior therapy describes numerous techniques aimed at curbing problem behaviors, such as interrupting, obsessions, meltdowns or violent outbursts. Behavior therapies usually focus on training a child to recognize a troublesome situation - such as a new place or an event with lots of social demands - and then select a specific learned strategy to cope with the situation.

One issue for many children with Aspergers is that they may well become prone to anxiety or depression in life. Often this can occur around the time of adolescence when they are really beginning to notice differences with their class mates and peers. So as with anyone experiencing such issues there may be treatments that can be helpful. Some medications may improve specific behaviors, such as anxiety, depression or hyperactivity. This is obviously one to talk to your general medical practitioner about. Although I personally am not big on medication (although in more severe cases it definitely has it's place) so would also look at other forms of treatment such as herbal approaches (like St. John's Wort), homeopathy, helping your child to voice their problems, getting regular exercise etc. to combat the issues.

Treatment for Aspergers often involves a team of professionals that may include a speech and language pathologist, a psychologist, a social worker, a psychiatrist, or a developmental pediatrician, in addition to your child's primary care physician. It's often possible for children with Aspergers to succeed in mainstream schools, with the help of teachers and special education instructors. However, make sure your child's teachers understand how he or she learns best and what situations might be troublesome. In children with Aspergers, high intelligence and good verbal skills can mask areas of real deficiency, so teachers may not realize that special teaching techniques, support services and extra attention are really necessary.

So to summarise this article I would say that there are definitely a number of important Aspergers treatments that can be used to help improve the quality of life for the child and their family. However to my knowledge there is no "cure" for Aspergers and it is my belief that Aspergers is not something that needs to be cured anyway. But treatments such as behavior management, social skills training, speech and language therapy, and appropriate medical/alternative treatments can be very helpful indeed. Both school and home life play a crucial part in co-ordinating and organizing these treatments.

Being Realistic about Yourself - Self Esteem Building

The first step to believing in yourself is to understand who you really are.


One of the most important things you need to do to achieve any kind of success is to be very realistic about yourself. You need to understand who you really are. Now, if you cannot even run for three minutes, you cannot start believing that you can win a gold medal in running, can you? Probably you can if you practice, but certainly not with what you are at present. This is what is extremely important to you when you begin. You have to understand your strengths and your capabilities. Realizing that is a very important step of believing in yourself and having positive self esteem.

There are people all around you achieving something or the other. Some are experts at playing the guitar, some are very brilliant with accounting, and some are great at housekeeping and so on. When we see such people, we do get impressed and we do say something, “I wish I was like him or her.” This is common human tendency. But that does not help us when we are trying to foster our belief in ourselves. If we are to do that properly, the most important thing we need is to know what we are really capable of.

Take a moment to think. 

Think what your strengths are. Think what you can do. We are not talking about things that you are an expert in, even some amount of knowledge in that particular area will do. Then take a blank sheet of paper and write down these things. Then arrange them in order. The first three things should be the things that you really do well, followed by things that you can do fairly well, followed by things that you can barely do but you can learn and improve. Take a look at this sheet of paper. Keep it with you always. This is what you are capable of. It is a part of what you are.

This realization is extremely valuable to you when you are trying to make a self-assessment. You need to know what you can do and what you can improve upon. If you are trying to become a master at something, it is very important to be sure of yourself and not live under illusions.

You have to value yourself.

Remember that you shouldn't take what people say at face value. Someone may tell you that you paint well, but that person may be prejudiced. You have to value yourself. Probably entering into a competition will tell you where you stand. At the same time, don’t shoot yourself down too much either. If you are good at something, you are good at it. Don’t get overworked that you aren't as good as the legends. You can always improve, but believing in your self worth is the first step to a new future.

The most important thing is to value yourself. When you know your limitations and your potentials, you know you can stand much better on your own.

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Know your self-worth, improve self confidence, and banish social anxiety

Realizing your self-worth has nothing to do with checking your bank balance, it is about you, the person you are in life. We give others respect, love and consideration but how often do we give ourselves what is due? How you value yourself is based on the self-esteem you have, your self-esteem shows you how much you truly value yourself. Healthy self-esteem leads to independence, happiness, flexibility, the ability to adapt easily to change, co-operation and a positive outlook on any situation. Unhealthy or low self-esteem on the other hand leads only to irrational thoughts, unhappiness, fear of the new, rigidity, defensiveness and a negative outlook on life in general.

How we see ourselves has a lot to do with how others see us, if we are happy, smiling and full of confidence then others see us as someone they want to be around, if we respect ourselves and portray this then others will respect you too, after all how can you ask for respect from others if you don’t even respect yourself? So finding and developing your self-worth is all about developing your self-esteem, so let’s take a look at esteem:

High self-esteem

If you have a high self-esteem you will see certain traits in yourself and how you see yourself, traits linked with a high self-esteem or self-worth are

• You are secure about who you are and have confidence in your abilities
• You allow yourself to show your true feelings to others
• You don’t have intimacy problems in relationships
• You are able to recognize and take pride in yourself for your achievements in life
• You are easily able to forgive yourself for mistakes and also forgive others

Low self-esteem

Similarly if you have problems with self-worth or low self-esteem then you will follow a certain pattern in your thoughts and ways, if you have problems with low self-esteem then you will see the following points in yourself

• You lack belief in yourself and are very insecure
• You have problems showing and accepting intimacy in relationships
• You never let your true feelings show
• You never recognize and give yourself credit for your accomplishments
• You have the inability to forgive yourself or others
• You resist change at every opportunity

Developing your self-worth

There are plenty of ways in which you can boost your self-esteem and change to a more positive and healthy outlook about yourself, here are some tips for developing and boosting your self-worth.

• Don’t take other peoples criticism to heart, instead listen to what they are saying and learn from it.
• Take some time out for yourself everyday, meditate, look inside yourself and realize all your good points and imagine changing your bad ones into more positive.
• Celebrate and pride yourself on even the smallest achievements that you accomplish.
• Do something everyday that you enjoy, such as talking a walk in the sunshine or soaking in a bubble bath.
• Never deprive yourself of something you enjoy, if you know you shouldn’t be doing it, then do it anyway and stop chastising yourself about it.
• Talk positively to yourself, repeat affirmations to chase away all of the negative thoughts and feelings.

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