Surprise! Surprise! Dogs suffer emotionally if left alone while their owner is out all day working. A report on research appears in the UK Sunday Times Today (03 07 11) under the title "Feeling Wuff With Home Alone Syndrome." and this needs further airing.
This follows details of the new documentary "Buck" about the Horse Whisperer and horses reactions to human emotion.
In the research on dogs, a sample of situations were filmed to watch their behaviour once the owner had left for work for the day.. What transpired surprised the researchers and the owners was that the pets did not settle into a quiet, compliant and patient frame of mind waiting for their owner to return. Nor did they merely occupy themselves with needless activities. They fretted, whined and displayed signs of being disturbed and distressed by the inexplicable solitude.
Personally this no longer surprises me. Time was when I would have thought otherwise. Now however I see too many signs that pets of varying kinds which appear capable of expressing affection towards us and pleasure at our company, are disturbed when it is not reciprocated. In consequence it is of little wonder to me that they get upset.
What I fear too, is that our children can only suffer similarly if we treat them in the same way. Surprising it may be, but loneliness can even affect them when we are in the same house at the same time. It can occur when we are engrossed in our own activities for long periods of time, expecting them to make themselves scarce.
As time progresses research on human relationships will undoubtably intensify. I believe it will turn a number of conventional parenting activities on their head. Also I suspect strongly that one of the most difficult cultural and behavioural adjustments we will have to make is accepting that we all have to be so much more aware at how unwittingly we can create emotional and behavioural disturbance in our children by how we handle their down time when as parents we are otherwise engaged.
We can no longer assume that children have the innate ability to resolve emotional upset unaided. They do not. And nor can we assume that whatever naive pattern or strategy they adopt themselves to deal with an emotional issue will have a short shelf life.
It becomes increasingly clear that children's ill-informed reactions and ineffective attitudes can remain with them long into their adulthood and then for as long as they lack the will to correct them.
Just as a dog can be trained to withstand hours of loneliness so could a child. But such compliance comes at a price - probably for the family in the short-term, but almost definitely, for the child in the long-term.
Gerry Neale author of the "self-discovery" novel called Squaring Circles
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