Anxiety isn’t a magic word to avoid responsibility
I grew up mesmerised by Gerald Durrell’s tales of the menagerie he assembled during his childhood in 1930s’ Corfu. What young person doesn’t feel life is immeasurably improved by having animals close to hand?
But even in my wackiest daydreams, I wouldn’t have considered taking one of the Pelling household beasts (dogs, cats, guinea pigs, Russian hamsters, goldfish and a tortoise we found in the woods) to school.
But we live in very different times and a Scottish family have just won a “landmark legal case” that may allow their anxious, school-refusing daughter to take a Golden Retriever into class to “support her wellbeing”.
There will now be another hearing where the girl’s parents hope they’ll secure agreement from Moray Council (who have previously refused their request) that the dog can accompany their child on a part-time basis. You don’t have to be a “zero tolerance” educationalist to feel this set a batty precedent.
Just look at the US, where “emotional support animals” have become such an everyday imposition that some ditsy soul attempted to take a peacock onto a flight at New Jersey airport. This mirrors many a workplace, where an increasing number of people bring pooches to work in the mistaken belief everyone adores them, no matter how yappy or flatulent.
I can’t see how pet therapy will play out any differently in schools. Especially if a child’s chosen support beast is a German Shepherd, ferret or tame rat? Won’t the bigger beast fancy a smaller one for lunch? Sometimes a small human hand can look tempting to a creature built to gnaw. It could all go a bit Hilaire Belloc very swiftly: “He hadn’t gone a yard when – Bang!/With open Jaws, a lion sprang”.
And what of teachers’ rights? A close relative is a TA in a busy primary school, where her reservoir of patience is regularly tested by children who haven’t been potty-trained. I can only imagine her joy at dealing with dog poo, or the delicate sensitivities of a canine stomach after a child slipped them chocolate.
That’s before you factor in the pupils with allergies, or the ones who get hysterical when lovingly slobbered on. Golden Retrievers are honeys, but they do like to lick a nose. What of the cynophobic? My little sister has a dog phobias so severe, she crosses the street when she glimpses an arthritic Pug.
Just to be clear: I don’t lack sympathy for the thousands of families with super-anxious children, who refuse all efforts to return them to a classroom. I have been that parent, with a child whose nuclear-strength willpower made Napoleon look like a wimp. No amount of disciplinary measures, bribes, threats, pleas or weeping made him budge during the dark days when he loathed school.
It’s also true the situation improved a lot when I bought a Maine Coon kitten for the family: nothing reduces stress levels like a fluffy feline curled up in your lap. Unless you have acute asthma, in which case he’ll land you in hospital. Which is why I never lobbied for cats in the classroom. The rights of one, highly-anxious individual can never trump those of everyone else in a classroom, especially in an over-stretched state system.
The whole purpose of education is to learn when’s best to remove the support wheels, so that our children can lead happy independent lives. It helps no one if you keep adding measures to prop them up, however adorable. Like Gerald Durrell, we should keep our animals at home and sometimes our children too, until they’re ready to rejoin the human herd.