By now, hopefully, you have had several successful years of your child helping you to feed your pet(s). It is time to expand on that experience and give them more responsibility. Through this phase, they will take on the entire responsibility of feeding a pet or pets. This exercise of remembering to take care of another being is very important in their maturity process.  

There isn’t much difference in what you were doing with them during their preschool years regarding the process. Only now, they are responsible for getting the food themselves and ensuring that they feed the pet regularly. You may have to remind them several times.  

It is beneficial to have a routine built on regular daily activities. For instance, whenever you get up from the table, you naturally take your plate to the sink, rinse it, and put it in the dishwasher. So an excellent way to remind them to feed the pets is to build it into their routine. (if you feed the pet twice a day, it will work out best to feed the animal before breakfast and dinner time.) this way, when you sit down at the table to eat breakfast or dinner together, you can ask did you feed the pet? If they have to get up and take care of the pet in the middle of dinner, they will soon begin to process that question independently. Eventually, it will work into the heart of their regular routine. 

It is highly recommended that the feeding assignment for a specific pet is for an extended period, As it will take a while for them to develop the skill on their own. Also, our experience has been their pets can easily be forgotten if the assignment is switched back and forth too often between children.