Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Animal Abuse: Let's Get A Plan In Place To Stop It

I feel abuse of animals is a learned behavior. Children grow up to be animal abusers because of what they're taught by peers, by their parents, or what they are NOT taught at home or in school. They're taught by seeing on TV that a pro football player like Michael Vick can serve a jail sentence for abuse but then get rewarded by a multimillion-dollar contract to play football again.

I feel since education at home may be lacking, the already underpaid and overworked teachers need to take on some of the task of educating their students, and parents need to contribute to the task of teaching their children that abusing animals is NOT okay.

How do teachers and parents begin to even find humane education resources and tools? A good start is by visiting The Humane Society Web site.

Here parents and teachers can learn how to educate kids, engage teenagers, inspire teens, receive Humane Educator training, receive lesson plans, and more.

Humane Educators are sometimes part of your local county's government. You can make an appointment with the humane education department of the county to pay a visit to an elementary school at no, or very little, cost.

Meanwhile, for the home, find some very inexpensive ways of engaging and teaching children how to care for and be kind to dogs, cats, and wildlife with these Humane Education Activity and Coloring Books, which will help teach humane values, create empathy, and can even inspire compassionate action.