Pet dogs help children better cope with stress, new study finds

Pet dogs do have a positive impact on children, say scientists that conducted a study in order to find out how exactly do dogs helped kids. According to their findings, children with pet dogs feel less stressed.

It is a long held believe that pet dogs have a positive impact on children but psychologists are still just figuring out how exactly the dogs help children. Scientist form the University of Florida inferred that this idea that pet dogs are great for kids could be measured by looking at the children’s stress levels. And this could have long-lasting effects as the tools we develop as children to deal with stress influence the way we will cope with pressure during adulthood.

“Many people think pet dogs are great for kids but scientists aren’t sure if that’s true or how it happens,” Darlene Kertes, leader of the projects and assistant professor in the psychology department of UF’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences said.”How we learn to deal with stress as children has lifelong consequences for how we cope with stress as adults.”

Darlene Kertes’ study is among the firsts of its kind in figuring out how dogs help kids buffer stress. In order to get accurate results, Kertes proceeded to conduct a randomized controlled study and enrolled approximately 100 pet-owning families, who were asked to come to the University’s laboratories together with their pets.

The children were subjected to stress factors like completing a public speaking task and a mental arithmetic test. The children were randomly assigned to experience the stress with their dog present for social support, with their parent present, or with no social support.

For both instances, scientists measured stress by relying on saliva tests in order to monitor levels of cortisol.

One one hand, children that had their pets alongside them, reported less stress than those that had their parents or no social support at all. On the other hand, tests showed that for kids who underwent the stressful experience with their pet dogs, cortisol level varied depending on the nature of the interaction of children and their pets.

“Children who actively solicited their dogs to come and be pet or stroked had lower cortisol levels compared to children who engaged their dogs less,” said Kertes. “When dogs hovered around or approached children on their own, however, children’s cortisol tended to be higher.”

The ideal age for children to get a pet dog if parents are looking for the animal to offer social support is in middle childhood. Psychologists say that during this time, the children’s social support figures are expanding beyond their parents but their emotional and biological capacities to deal with stress are still maturing. The scientists conducting the study are advocating for further research into how children can be helped to deal with stress.