Our family has two cats. My 5yr old daughter is constantly tormenting them by picking them up by the tail, stomach, legs, and she will hold them to a point that the cats get angry (they never scratch or bite). Everytime i see this behaviour, i tell her to stop and explain to her that these are real animals and not toys...but she never seems to listen to me. It has come to a point that I am telling her to let go of the cats upto 10 times a day and it is mentally exhausting. I do not want to get rid of my cats and she doesn't seem to see that she is hurting them. I've given her time outs and I've even told her that if this behaviour doesn't stop that the cat's will have to go to a new family (even though i would never give them up. Nothing seems to get through to her any more....HELP!!!

We have three cats and our daughter grew up with them. She is 19 months old now. She is rough with them and she has had her fair share of scratches and bites. She cries for all of five seconds and then does the same thing again.
The best thing to do is to let her do it even if you know the cat will bite or scratch her. There are photos of me as a young child (at age 5 and up) with cat scratches. Sometimes they don't learn. Some kids will. If they don't like being scratched or bitten. But some are strong willed like my daughter LOL She will keep going back. When she gets older she will learn to be gentle. I'm using myself as an example. By the age of about 7 I had learnt and I love cats. I would cuddle our cat and take him to bed LOL As long as she isn't going to physically hurt the cats then I would just leave her. Or you could try giving her a light smack on the hand (if you don't disapprove of spanking) if Time Outs aren't working. The thing with Time Outs is you have to stick to them. You have to put her in a corner or wherever and make her sit there for 5 minutes. You tell them why they are sitting there and if they move you say nothing and just put them back. After 5 minutes (of sitting still) you go back and get her and ask for an apology. If you keep at it it will work. And it can't be any harder than telling her ten times a day or more to stop it. ;)

I have a five year old also. She is old enough to know better. Try and take things away that she really would miss. A after school sport,a favorite toy or T.V privileges... etc. Tell her she can't have it back until she starts being nice to the cats. You might have to take almost every toy in her room and keep them for as it takes for her to start being nice to the cats. It worked with my 5 year old when he would not clean his room. I kept taking toys or t-ball practices and T.V. away until he realized I was not joking. Now he cleans his room every day and. Hope this helps.

tellingn her just to let go of the cats prob isnt working because she knows well i can still do this in twenty or so minutes its like telling an excited dog to sit they will listen but as soon as they know u are no longer paying attention they will get up and do whatever it is that they were doing before. im a big animal lover and one thing that really gets to me is seeing little kids playing too roughly with animals there was a dog down the street when i still lived with my parents and the kids treated that dog so roughly it didnt trust anyone after a while it wound up getting put to sleep after chasing my little brother down the street biting his lag then trying to attack us as we tried to get it away from him your cats are putting up with your child now but after a while you may not have the same cats they will scratch bite growl or even run and hide from u u have to do more then just tell her to put them down try different things time out taking things away till u find something thats gonna make her stop

Yeah I agree with Amanda, put a stop to this NOW! Don't give up the cats, because that way you are giving in to her behavior. You have to teach her that animals are precious and they have to be treated kindly at all times. Animal abuse to me is worse than child abuse or molestation, but thats just me, I guess because animals are innocent and never want to hurt people, they are our friends and cant comprahend that some people are just mean....and when an animal gets hurt, it doesnt know why the person did it. Animals deserve no harm done to them, and you have to stop this immediately, whatever it takes I have said this since I was a small child, and still say it now...If I saw an adult brutally abusing an animal, i would literally kill him or her and I mean that. Thats how seriously I take animal abuse. I have always felt that way even since I was about 5, so I'm not exaggerating.