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Caring For Our Pets
Animals have an important role to play here at BestStart Hillcrest, which is currently home to tiny Tim the turtle, Sunshine, Bluey and Greeny our budgies, Boris our Blue tongue Lizard and lots of guppies. Pets teach children valuable life lessons like responsibility, trust, compassion, respect and patience. While pets offer a lot of benefits to children, children also have a lot to offer the pets as well. Both children and pets enjoy high energy play as well as having a cuddle buddy.
When pets show unconditional love to children, it boosts their self-esteem, social skills and help grow their empathy towards others and towards animals too. Research shows that relationships with animals can support the development of empathy and in children engaging with animals can be therapeutic, ease tension, anxiety and stress.
A pet can also provide a sense of comfort and encourage children to speak or express their innermost feelings or questions. Our tamariki at Hillcrest help tend to our pets by feeding and caring for their environments, they also bring in kai from home for them. Our pets are truely part of our whanau and this links to our centre priorities : kaitiaki caring for our environment.