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We can learn a lot from otters, so do otters have any lessons to teach us about parenting? Otters offer warmth, love and comfort to their young, but they don't hesitate to play rough with them or put them through scary situations as a lesson. What do otter parents get so right that each young otter cub grows up to be an otter?
An important thing here to remember is that parent otters are always with their babies during those scary lessons. We've all seen that video of a mother otter teaching her baby that water is a good thing and not to be scared of it, and while it's important that the mother is exposing her baby to harsh conditions in order to teach about the world, it isn't like the mom ott abandoned the baby ott in the water and then swam away. She stayed with the baby until the baby was okay, but also kept the baby in the scary situation. So while it's good to put your children into scarier situations as learning experiences, don't just drop your kids in the middle of the woods with no assistance so that they learn.
>Along with mothering multiple pups throughout their lifetimes, sea otter moms do it single-handedly. They are truly “single mothers”, with no child support or help with pup-rearing from dad.This saddens me, the OP pic made me think otters mate and stick together for life.
It depends on the species! Sea otters might be mostly solitary, but marine otters mate for life, the otters of Singapore group together in related clans to hunt and raise the little ones together, giant otters and Asian small clawed otters often live in little family groups of the parents and their young. I think those are small clawed otters in the pick, so probably some parenting teamwork goin on there.
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