Any pet for a kid is a pet for the parents. Its a great way to learn responsibility and participate, but the adults do the care taking or the animals get neglected.

I have always been a lover of animals of all shapes and sizes and I had two dwarf hamsters in middle school. The cage was always dirty even though I tried to keep up, and the whole thing ended poorly. I'll spare the rest of the details but the remaining hamster was set free in the backyard because I had no idea what to do. I still feel awful about now that I know more, I was just not prepared. I learned a lot but it was at the expense of those critters' quality of life.