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You are here: Home / Living with Cats / 7 Tips for Introducing a New Kitten to Kids

7 Tips for Introducing a New Kitten to Kids

Updated 13 February 2016 By Pawesome Cats 10 Comments

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Bringing a new kitten into your family is bound to be an exciting time, but should you be worried about introducing him to your kids? The answer is No; as long as you follow these essential tips for introducing a new kitten to kids, you’ll have a well-adjusted kitten and children who know how to respect animals.

ginger and white kitten
[Tweet “A new kitten is the perfect opportunity to teach your children how to respect and love animals.”]

Take it Slowly

Your new kitten is likely to be overwhelmed by his new surroundings; add excitable children to this and it can be a bit too much. Your children are bound to be thrilled with their new playmate, but you should make sure that they understand that they have to take their time in getting to know him. This will obviously be more difficult the younger the children are, but instilling a respect for animals and an understanding of how to treat them when your kids are young is a great start in life.

Be Gentle

Being handled at a young age will help ensure your nervous kitten turns into a confident, well-socialised cat, but it has to be gentle. Young kittens are delicate, despite what you might think after seeing him racing around the house at the speed of light.

Kitten_1

Get Down to His Level

Encourage your children to lie down on the floor to meet your kitten; it’s less threatening for your kitten to have everyone on his level, and he’s more likely to feel comfortable approaching you and your children.

Set the Ground Rules

As we all know, children can get noisy when they’re over excited, and what could be more exciting than a cute little kitten? Make sure that they know to speak in soft voices, without squealing, screeching or screaming around him, because the last thing they’ll want to do is scare him!  Other understandable ground rules should be no pulling of tails and no squeezing too hard (no matter how cute he is!).

Kitten_2

Get the Kids Involved

Depending on their ages, give your children responsibility for different aspects of looking after your kitten, for example feeding time, changing litter and coming on visits to the vet. Apart from making them feel involved, it’ll also teach them about responsible pet parenting.

The Right Way to Play

Once kitten and kids have been properly introduced, and your kitten is more comfortable with the whole family, it’s important to teach your children the right way to play with cats. Playing rough is a bad idea, even though a little kitten’s claws won’t make much of an impact now – when he grows up and wants to carry on playing rough, it could end in tears!

Kitten_3

Keep an Eye on Proceedings

Make sure that any time together is supervised until you’re absolutely certain that your children know exactly how to behave and handle the kitten.

Once your whole family is comfortable with the new kitten, you’re well on your way to having a well-socialised cat, respectful and knowledgeable children, and an all-round happy family!

How have you introduced a new kitten to children? What tips do you have ?

Images: Emily Mitchell / Nicolas Suzor / Pargon / Ryan Forsythe via Flickr

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Filed Under: Living with Cats

Comments

  1. Bree Ward says

    22 February 2019 at 1:18 pm

    You made a good point when you said that bringing a new kitten home is very exciting. I have 2 kids who love pets, and they have their own puppies. My plan is to give them kittens next month. I’m sure they’ll love it. I’m gonna get the cutest kittens available.

    Reply
  2. Ella Goodwin says

    8 September 2014 at 6:28 pm

    My son was really young when we got our cats and was gentle, it was beautiful 🙂

    Now we would like to get more cats but our worry is how our cats would cope with a new kitten or cat. It would great to hear some tips on that subject!

    Reply
  3. Robin says

    14 August 2014 at 3:32 pm

    Great advice! It is really important that children learn respect for animals as living creatures. Humans are not born with the knowledge of how to care for an animal so it must be taught. It’s pretty easy to forget that things you do with a kitten may translate into problems as an adult cat later on.

    Reply
  4. meowmeowmans says

    14 August 2014 at 12:05 pm

    Wonderful tips. No kids here, but these are good to keep in mind whenever folks with little ones adopt kittens from the shelter!

    Reply
  5. Kitties Blue says

    14 August 2014 at 5:43 am

    Excellent post with good info. All the kitten photos are a bonus!

    Reply
  6. Miley says

    14 August 2014 at 1:47 am

    Great tips! Mom is still always telling us to be gentle around our kitty. We love her but sometimes the feelings aren’t always mutual!

    Reply
  7. Traveling Cats says

    13 August 2014 at 10:13 pm

    The most important is definitely how to be gentle and responsable. This doesn’t come naturally for kids.

    Reply
  8. The Swiss Cats says

    13 August 2014 at 8:49 pm

    Great tips ! It’s really impawtant that both kittens and children are educated together ! We think that your advices fit for first time kitten owners too ! Purrs

    Reply
  9. Fur Everywhere says

    13 August 2014 at 7:26 pm

    These are really great tips! I would add to let your kids know that it’s not okay to pull a kitten (or adult cat) out of his/her hiding place. A new kitten may hide initially due to nervousness.

    Reply
  10. Jo @ Creature Clinic says

    13 August 2014 at 4:51 pm

    Really important advice – particularly relevant to me as I am looking at adding a kitten to my own family in October 🙂 I’m SO excited, but will have to manage proceedings very carefully with a 3 year old and a baby in the house!

    Reply

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