Learning Responsibility with Our New Pet Fish

This post on Learning Responsibility with Our New Pet Fish is a sponsored post for PetSmart. All opinions are my own.

A pet store can be more enticing to a child than the candy shop. I learned this oh so well on our recent trip to PetSmart.

“Mom, can I have a gerbil? I want a guinea pig! Can I please have a guinea pig? Where are the cats?”

When I wouldn’t ask a PetSmart employee where the cats were, Abby went up and asked one herself. My seven year old. I guess I can’t get away with that anymore!

“No, you’re not ready for your own cat. And you can not have a guinea pig. Not yet, anyway. Let’s start with a pet fish, shall we?”

We’ve always had goldfish. In fact, our previous goldfish lived a long and lustrous life of five years before finally passing away last year. That’s when we acquired a new goldfish, who is still swimming. My oldest son has grown up with fish and has learned the responsibility of caring for such fish. They don’t require an abundance of care, just some food and a clean tank. It’s more about routine and that is what makes fish a great first pet!

Which is why we were at PetSmart – for my daughter’s first fish. With their fluorescent colors and fun lighted aquariums, GloFish were quick to catch her attention. Their name says it all. Combined with the blue LED lights of the GloFish Bubbling Aquarium, GloFish offer a unique and fun experience!

To go in the aquarium, we also had to pick up specialty GloFish rocks and décor for added color and fun, all of which were easy to find at PetSmart.

We then picked out our fish. Abby held onto them, wrapped in a plastic bag, to make sure they were safe all the way home.

She then helped me prepare the aquarium with the proper water and chemicals to make it safe for our new fish. It was then a lesson in patience as we let the bag sit in the water so they could get acclimated to the temperature. Who knew we could learn so much from fish!

In fact, specialty pets can help make learning fun and help kids understand teamwork as well as responsibility. Pets like fish drive curiosity of the natural world and inspire kids to explore the biology, anatomy, history and geography of these animals. Caring for pets also teaches math skills like measuring food, calculating temperature and humidity, and charting the growth of the pet.

All pets bring us closer to the natural world, but specialty pets such as fish provide a unique way to inspire kids to learn about something they normally would not experience in real life. Our new fish are great first pets that teach important hands-on life skills to both my daughter and boys – skills they’ll carry with them throughout their life to more demanding pets and beyond!

To see more about Little Creatures, Big Lessons click here!