Amazon attitude with 7 year old grandson.

[aooratrix]

My birds do not like children. Morgan gets wound up when the nieces and nephews are over; they are all in their teens. However, when I take a macaw, usually Annie, to my creative writing class, she tolerates them. I educate the kids on movement and energy level before and during her visits.

 

[Yoshi&Raphi]

Yoshi is surprisingly pretty good with children, he’s pretty wary of all new people but he treats energetic children the same as he does an adult and for a treat will step up on them.

 

[Clueless]

My oldest grandson loved MC. When he was in his walker, he'd shove it in the direction of MC's cage. His head would tilt down and watch the baby. Each shove the baby was closer until MC's cage was hit by the baby. As the baby grew, each visit to the St. Louis zoo..... he went to the birds first. His mom was flabbergasted.

Of course, there were issues with bird noises when he was about 4? I taught him to make noises and the birds would make the noises back.

My second grandson always favored Secret.

All 3 boys spent a LOT of time here and understand they are wild birds and can bite.

 

[Clueless]

They've also read The Lonely Parrot by Lisa Kelly. It's important they understand.

 

[txdyna65]

Lucy was raised around my daughter from 13 on to now (19) She absolutely loves my daughter and will do anything to get her attention.
The only small kids to have been around her are my nieces son and daughter. She will climb down the cage and talk and make sounds to them and really loves
my nieces daughter. We've never let her out when they are over and the kids know not to stick fingers in the cage so all is good.

 

[Shezbug]

Burt has only met a few young ones and he has been really interested in some of them and totally uncomfortable about others. I think it totally depends on the energy level, behaviour and confidence or vibe of each person he meets as to how he reacts to them.

 

[flyzipper]

"He was aggressive with the grandkids", is precisely the story I heard during the re-home process when I adopted my Severe, so in that instance his aversion worked in my favour.

Sorry you're having challenges; it's never good when there's tension between family and flock. That said, I'm of the opinion that it's entirely normal for Solomon to be wary of your grandson (or any other person/situation that's unfamiliar). I remember having that thought about my Severe, "of course he's agitated... unfamiliar people have invaded his home, and disrupted his routine".

I also have a retired racing greyhound who grew up on the track without exposure to kids, and she too is anxious (expecting them to be noisy and unpredictable).

Whether it's kids or garbage cans (my greyhound dislikes walking on garbage day), I believe that addressing aversive behaviours during unfamiliar situations, requires deliberate positive reinforcement training. It's unlikely to cure itself (not quickly anyway), especially in my case when none of my crew have exposure to kids in their life with me.

 

[taxidermynerd]

If we don't teach them, they may never be taught.

It's not my job to raise other people's kids. The amount of children, and even adults, who are so blatantly disrespectful to animals as a whole, is horrifying. I hope you have had the good fortune to not share my experiences. But I have my reasons, believe me.

I have a rottweiler, if she reacts in self defense she could get put down for being "aggressive". My other two pets are fragile and easily harmed, and all 3 have the ability to bite enough to cause harm. I'm not taking a chance with any of my pets. Especially when a child doesn't seem to understand "no".

 

[tka]

My 2 year old niece is fascinated by Leia, and Leia is fascinated by my niece. However, they both find each other too noisy at times and Leia finds my niece's quick, unpredictable movements worrying. So at the moment they are heavily supervised. I've had Leia on my shoulder while my niece was in the same room and there was mutual wide-eyed interest.

My niece is growing up with dogs and us very good with them, so in time I hope she'll learn to interact with Leia. That won't be for several years though. Going by what others are saying, it probably won't be until she's 9 or 10. If they like each other, my niece may even end up as Leia's caretaker should I die before she does.