Growing Up With a Cat: What It Gives a Child

Ask a child what their cat means to them and the answer is rarely complicated. In a survey of 1,217 Scottish primary school children, 76% said their pet was their best friend and 52% said it tried to comfort them when they were upset. The research is more careful than the children are, but it points the same way: children with pets tend to be less lonely, more socially confident and kinder to animals, and children who grew up with pets were, in some studies, less likely to develop allergies, and in a large pooled study no more likely to develop asthma. What makes the difference is the cat. A nervous or scratchy cat teaches a child to be wary; a calm, people loving cat that has grown up around children teaches them gentleness. That is what we raise our colony kittens to be, and this guide sets out the evidence, the caveats, the safety rules that keep child and cat happy, and how we match kittens to families.

Gentle handling, learned early: our kittens grow up with children in the house, and children learn with them.

What growing up with a cat gives a child

Here is what parents and children report, matched against the evidence.

Less lonely, more confident with people

A systematic review of 22 studies of children and companion animals found the most consistent evidence for self esteem, loneliness and social competence: pet owning children and teenagers reported less loneliness, and several studies linked a bond with a pet to better social skills and more social play in three to six year olds (Purewal and colleagues, 2017). In the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, among 4,242 five year olds those with any pet had lower odds of emotional symptoms and peer problems, and the cat only and dog only groups both showed the pattern (Christian and colleagues, 2020).

Kindness and compassion

In 24 Scottish primary schools, 1,217 children were asked about their pets. Eighty per cent said they loved them, 83% of owners said their pet made them happy, 76% said it was their best friend and 62% said they would be lonely without it. The more attached a child was, the kinder their attitudes to animals and the more caring their behaviour, and cats and dogs were the two kinds of pet children bonded with most (Hawkins, Williams and the Scottish SPCA, 2017). Cats Protection puts it simply: learning to care for a cat can do wonders for a child's self esteem, social skills and sense of responsibility to others (Cats Protection).

Communication and language

The Children of the 90s study followed about 14,000 children born in Bristol. Having a pet at two was linked to better non verbal communication and having one at five to better language comprehension, and the study is one of only a handful to follow children over time (Purewal and colleagues, 2024). The effects were small, and the authors say so.

Someone who does not judge

A cat is the family member who never asks how school went. For a shy child, an only child or a child going through a hard patch, the Scottish finding that half of children felt their pet tried to comfort them when upset is the one parents recognise most.

Illustrations, not evidence

• A seven year old who will not read aloud to anyone reads to the cat every night, and the cat, a patient Ragdoll, stays for the whole chapter.
• A teenager who has stopped talking to the family still talks to the cat, and the cat is the reason the bedroom door stays open.
• An only child learns to wait: the cat comes when it is ready, and not before.

These are the kinds of stories families tell us. They show what is possible, not what is guaranteed.

What a cat cannot do

The research is mostly small, cross sectional and parent reported, and the review authors call the evidence low level. The Bristol study also found a few small negatives: pet ownership went with slightly lower school attainment, and cat ownership specifically with more hyperactivity at three and lower odds of high scholastic competence at eight, effects the authors describe as small and possibly reflecting which families choose a cat rather than anything the cat does (Purewal 2024). A cat does not make a child cleverer and it does not replace friends, parents or help a child needs. It is good company and a daily lesson in gentleness, which is plenty.

The allergy question

The fear that a cat will give a child allergies or asthma stops some families, and the evidence mostly points the other way, with exceptions.

What the studies found

• In Detroit, 474 children were followed from birth to age six or seven. Those who had lived with two or more cats or dogs in their first year were about half as likely to test positive to any allergen at six or seven (15% against 34%), and half as likely to react to cat (8% against 16%) (Ownby, Johnson and Peterson, 2002). More than half the children had allergic parents.
• In Sweden, among 1,029 seven and eight year olds, the proportion who had ever had an allergy fell steadily with the number of cats and dogs in the home during their first year, from 49% with none down to none at all among the few children who grew up with five or more (Hesselmar and colleagues, 2018).
• Across 11 European birth cohorts and more than 22,000 children, having a cat in the first two years made no difference to asthma at six to ten, in either direction, and the authors advised neither avoiding nor acquiring a pet to prevent it (Lødrup Carlsen and colleagues, 2012).

What that means for your family

Early life exposure to cats does not appear to cause allergy and may reduce it, but the protective findings are observational and the UK charity Allergy UK does not claim protection; its factsheet notes that an allergy to an animal can develop at any time and that cat allergen is particularly persistent (Allergy UK). If a child in the family already has a cat allergy or asthma triggered by cats, a cat is a decision for your GP, not for a breeder. If nobody in the family is allergic, the fear of causing an allergy is not, on the current evidence, a strong reason to say no, though the studies are observational and cannot rule out an effect in an individual child. No cat is hypoallergenic, Ragdolls included; our myths guide explains why, and the sensible test is to spend time around the breed before committing.

Why colony raised: kittens that already know children

Breed sets the ceiling; the first weeks of life decide how much of it a kitten reaches. A Ragdoll raised quietly by one queen in a spare room and a Ragdoll raised underfoot in a house of sixteen adult cats, chickens, a peacock, a hoover and a family will grow into different cats, and the science on why is consistent. For a family, the question is simple: has this kitten met children before, at the age when it learns what is normal? Ours have, every day, because children live here.

The sensitive period

Kittens have a window for learning what is safe, roughly two to seven weeks of age (International Cat Care; Cats Protection). What a kitten meets calmly in that window it tends to accept for life; what it never meets, it may fear. Handling by several different people, including men, women and children, produces more sociable adult cats than handling by one person.

Handling, parents and the mother's example

In a study that followed kittens to a year old, those handled regularly from two to twelve weeks were quicker to approach, touch and rub against people and were less distressed when approached and handled by strangers; boldness toward new things followed the father (McCune, 1995). Friendliness to people has been linked to the father in two separate colonies (Turner and colleagues, 1986), and how a cat reacts to being held by a stranger is a stable trait from four months onward (Lowe and Bradshaw, 2002). Kittens also learn by watching their mother, and International Cat Care notes that a poorly socialised mother holds back her kittens' socialisation.

Weaning and leaving

The large Finnish survey found that cats weaned before eight weeks showed more aggression and repetitive behaviour as adults, and the researchers suggested keeping kittens with their mother to at least fourteen weeks (Ahola, Vapalahti and Lohi, 2017). No kitten leaves us before nine weeks, weaned by its mother rather than by a timetable, and our reasoning on nine to ten weeks, and why it differs from that and from the usual guidance, is set out on our story page.

Why colony raised is different

A conventional set up is one queen and her litter, kept apart from other cats in a quiet room, with handling that depends on who has time. Ours is a domesticated colony of sixteen adult Ragdolls living in the house, and kittens are born into it. In practice that means:

• Many calm adults to learn from, not one. Kittens grow up inside a group with a settled social order, copying the unbothered way a dozen adults react to the doorbell, the hoover and visitors.
• Parents chosen for temperament. We breed from cats we live with every day, so we know which lines are bold, which are gentle and which are busy, and we keep only the calm, people loving ones in the programme. Because shyness and aggression are heritable, this matters.
• Daily handling by the whole household from birth: adults, children and visitors, with brushing, paw and ear checks and carrying built into the routine. Our kittens meet ducks, chickens, a peacock, guinea pigs, parrots, the washing machine and the general bustle of a working family home before the fear window closes.
• Underfoot, not in a spare room. They are raised in the kitchen and living room, which is where they will live with you.

No study has compared colony rearing with conventional rearing head to head, and we would rather say so than pretend. What the research does show is which ingredients make a confident, settled, people loving cat: several handlers, calm parents, adults to learn from and a long time with the mother. A colony delivers every one of them every day, as the way the house works rather than a programme someone has to remember to run. That is why our kittens have usually arrived already at ease with children, noise and the general chaos of family life, and why families often tell us the kitten slotted in as if it had always been there.

Babies, pregnancy and the cat

Cats Protection found that more than half of cat owners expecting a baby had worries, that nearly a third were told by someone to give up their cat, usually friends or family, and that of the one in twelve who did, 63% regretted it (Cats Protection survey). Most of the owners who gave up a cat wished they had kept it.

Toxoplasmosis

The infection people worry about in pregnancy is mostly caught from undercooked meat and soil, not cats. NHS advice is that you cannot catch it from stroking a cat or having one as a pet; the precautions are gloves for the litter tray and gardening, and washing hands (NHS 111 Wales). Cats Protection adds that a cat sheds the parasite only for a couple of weeks after its first exposure, that the parasite takes one to five days in the tray to become infectious, so emptying the tray daily, before they can become infectious, greatly reduces the risk, and that someone else should do the tray during pregnancy (Cats Protection toxoplasmosis leaflet). An indoor Ragdoll on cooked or commercial food, never raw meat, is about as low risk as a cat gets.

The cot

Cats Protection's advice is that cat and baby are always supervised together, and safer sleep advice is that a cat never shares a cot, pram or Moses basket and is kept out of the room while the baby sleeps. Follow both and the old worry about smothering is answered. The other rules are the ones you would apply anyway: the nursery off limits to the cat at first, the tray out of a crawling baby's reach, and flea and worm treatment kept up (Cats Protection: cats and babies; Battersea).

Preparing the cat

Battersea suggests playing baby sounds quietly in the weeks before; set up the nursery early so the furniture is old news, keep the cat's routine the same when the baby arrives, and never force an introduction. A colony raised Ragdoll has heard a great deal of noise before; a new baby is one more thing the house does.

What the research shows, and where it stops

Children and pets

• Review of 22 studies: consistent for self esteem, loneliness and social competence, inconclusive for anxiety and depression, mostly low level evidence (Purewal 2017).
• UK birth cohort of about 14,000: pets linked to better communication at two and language at five; small negatives for attainment and, for cats, hyperactivity at three; effects small and possibly reverse causation (Purewal 2024).
• 4,200 Australian children: any pet at five linked to fewer emotional symptoms and peer problems; cats and dogs both (Christian 2020). A related study of 1,646 households with preschoolers found dog owning children a third more likely to be prosocial; dogs only (Wenden 2021).
• 1,217 Scottish children: attachment to pets, kinder attitudes and caring behaviour; cats and dogs the pets children bond with most (Hawkins 2017).
• Empathy and cats, the fair version: two Canadian studies found higher empathy in dog owning children but not cat owning ones, reported second hand in a 2018 review (Jacobson and Chang, 2018); the review by Endenburg and van Lith concluded that bonding with the animal matters more than simply owning one, and that which animals suit which children is not yet established (Endenburg and van Lith, 2011).
• Autistic children and cats: 65 parents, mostly in the UK, reported that a child's positive behaviour toward the pet went with more prosocial behaviour, and six reported that the cat had injured the child, mostly scratches or bites (Wilson 2025); in 64 US families cats adopted as kittens were more affectionate and less aggressive (Hart 2018). Our cats and autism guide covers this in full.

Allergies

• Protective findings in Detroit and Sweden, a null finding across 22,000 European children, and no UK body claiming protection. Early exposure is not a reason to avoid a cat; existing allergy is a reason to ask a doctor.

Ragdolls specifically

• No study has looked at Ragdolls and children. The breed's suitability rests on the temperament evidence above and on how the kitten was raised.

In short: growing up with a cat can be good for a child in modest, real ways, the cat's temperament and the house rules decide whether it goes well, and nothing here should be read as a cat doing a parent's job.

Questions people ask