This is a very tough questions to answer for most of the parents and hamsters owners alike. This blog entry generally covers preschool kids that have never interacting with hamsters or other types of pets before.
Important : If your hamster is very aggressive and non human friendly, it will best that children do not touch your hamster. This will prevent your hamster from being agitated nor the kids to be bitten.
Other than aggressive hamsters, I also do not recommend roboskivii hamster as playmates as they are not suitable for people who have no or minimium hamster experience.
On the usual tone, my house only allow kids to play with tame and human friendly hamsters.
Another important point to take note is always supervise kid-hamster interaction at all times so that neither parties will be hurt in the process.
Step 1 (Before hamster interaction)
Before letting any kids play with your hamster, it will be useful to inform them in advance the temperament of your hamster. Educate the kids that they are dealing with a living animal so they have to handle your hamster with gentle care at all times.
Step 2 (Intial Interaction)
As you lift the hamster in your hands, ask the kid to slowly and gently touch your hamster by the head until both hamster and kid is comfortable with each other.
Step 3 (Feeding Interaction)
Next try asking the kid to hold the sunflower seed with his/her fingers and let the hamster eat the seed. Alternatively, you can ask the kid to cupped the hands with sunflowers and let the hamster explore the kid's hand.
Step 4 (Before passing hamster over)
When you want to let the kid hold the hamster 1st time round, the best method will be asking the child to sit on a sofa or soft bench or carpeted floor before passing your hamster over. This is prevent nasty fall/drop of your hamster.
Step 5 (Holding interaction)
Ask the kid to cup his/her hands gently around your hamster so that your hamsters will not be at a discomfort and always educate them that they are dealing with living animal and treat your hamster with respect.
Show some basic trick like "Walk the hamster" or "Standing Hamster".
Avoid teaching nape holding or tummy holding tactics to the child as this will require some holding practise and the child's hand might be too small to properly hold your hamster.
Step 6 (Letting the kid to play with your hamster)
Try setting up an viewable area for your hamster to run and play with the child if both parties seems to be at ease with each other.
The child by now should be able to handle your hamster. :)
Upcoming article : Kids' responsbility toward hamsters as owners.
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