The Best Pets for Kids

This list is rather concerning - many of these pets are not appropriate for young children! Turtles and other reptiles commonly carry salmonella and young kids will not understand the importance of immediate hand washing after touching the turtle or its habitat.

Not all dogs are good with kids and no dogs should be allowed unsupervised with kids. While cats may be appropriate for quiet, gentle kids, they may be scared by and scratch or bite overactive, rough kids.

While fish can be nice pets for young kids to watch, goldfish should not be kept in bowls or small tanks - they need lots of space to grow. Betta fish are much better options for small tanks or bowls.

Most pet birds will bite and while younger kids may enjoy watching them from outside the cage, tweens to teenagers are more appropriate to directly handle birds.

Guinea pigs can make good pets for kids 4 and older. Hamsters are better for older kids that can handle them safely as they tend to bite.

I'm not even going to discuss the pony...

Maybe this list is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek and I just missed the point, but if not... Votes: +1

This is truly awful. I'm a reptile keeper--I've kept various species of herpetofauna since I was 12-13 (I'm 27 now). Turtles are a lot of work--more than most snakes or lizards, and they're very long lived. My great aunt has a red ear slider (which is the most common aquatic turtle in the pet trade) that's ~35 years old and going strong.

There's lots of acceptable non-conventional pets that are fine for children, but most turtles would not be on my list. Votes: +0

Oh, and as far as the cage not being big? My red ear slider lives in a 5x2x2 stock tank. They get fairly large and are active and need a fair amount of space. A large female will need 100+ gallon tank (and there's no way to sex them when they're young--the visual indicators are easy, but only when they're older). Votes: +0