Can Your Child Take Their Emotional Support Animal to School?

The school year is back in full swing once more, meaning long days, lots of homework, and stressful new challenges. If your child is struggling with a learning disability, mental illness, or other problem, you may wonder if an emotional support animal would help them. Read on to learn more.

An emotional support animal can help with depression, anxiety, PTSD, ADHD, and many other learning disabilities or mental illnesses. If you have a pet at home, you may notice that it helps your child calm down, feel happier, provide comfort, and provide them space to just be themselves without judgement. You may wonder if sending an emotional support animal to school with your child would help them perform better.

Unfortunately, emotional support animals cannot accompany an individual in public the way a service animal can. However, you can live with your emotional support regardless of pet policies and without pet fees. If just having an animal at home helps your student adequately, then registering your animal as an emotional support animal may be the way to go.

If you child needs to take their animal to school with them, see if you can register it as a psychiatric service dog. Psychiatric service dogs are defined as dogs who are trained to do a specific task in relation to their owner’s mental health issues or learning disability. For example, psychiatric service dog tasks might include reminding them to take medication at a certain time, reminding them to stay on a schedule, interrupting panic attacks or flashbacks, or providing motivation and encouragement via physical stimulation.

Once your support animal is registered as service animal, it can be taken anywhere your child goes, because under the ADA it is considered necessary medical equipment, and this includes the classroom. If you’re child is taking their service animal to school with them, it’s important to meet with the teachers and school staff to explain the situation, and make sure that service dog etiquette is explained to the other students in the class. This will help ensure the dog is not a distraction to the other students, and that they understand the dog is actively working and not there to play.

In conclusion, if your student benefits from having an animal at home, then you can easily register it as an emotional support animal so you can have it no matter your living circumstances. If your child needs to take their support animal to school with them to perform certain tasks in relation to their mental wellbeing, then you can register is as a psychiatric service dog so it can accompany your kid no matter where they go. You can easily get certification for an emotional support animal or certification for a psychiatric service dog by visiting United Support Animal. Our professionals can quickly and efficiently help you get the certification you need to help your young student thrive.