need parenting advice related to pet care

[FollowTheSun]

this is my personal experience with it, as im 19 and have had reptiles since i was 13. this could be wrong due to you saying that she takes wonderful care of the animals themselves, but for me it was always an underlying problem when it came to neglecting animals care, in my brain id wanna do something id constantly tell myself to do it but my body physically couldnt do it no matter how hard i tried. now for me this was caused by a mixture of adhd and/or depression. now obviously i dont know her so i can’t say anything, but im just saying to keep an eye out. my parents would constantly yell at me for not being able to take care of certain animals and id try to explain but they never understood and yelling just makes it even harder to do things when ya feel like that

EDIT: this very reason is why i now refuse to have anything other than snakes. because ive accepted that i mentally cant take care of them, it’s something that really sucks but you linda just gotta get used to it


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I think this is extremely insightful and I appreciate your input. She is one who definitely struggles with personal organization and attention-- not only her age but just how she's wired. However she has learned to compensate with systems to help her be a good animal keeper. I forgot to mention above that she also has a hedgehog. She has a schedule that she follows to check food and water, clean the cages, feed the snake, etc. She has outright said that they are "just crickets" and doesn't seem to think or care that they have needs, too, and that's probably why they are being neglected.

I think you are wise to know what you are good at and stick to that, rather than spreading yourself too thin. Both my partner and I are both animal lovers and when we merged households we realized we have way too many . . . and as they die off from old age/disease we are not replacing them as quickly. I think my daughter is learning that now, and has stated she loves her chameleon (and she really does take excellent care of him) she is done having critters that need live food after her chameleon dies of old age. We also purposely don't let her have any pets that will outlive her leaving home and going to college, other than her snake, which I don't mind caring for. :-)