Chinese Zodiac for Kids and Parents

What does the Chinese zodiac have to tell us about our children — and how best to parent them?

Every parent strives to provide their child with the best (and most self-aware) support possible, and that objective encourages a process of seeking guidance from many sources of wisdom, including doctors and other child-rearing experts, family and friends. By knowing more about our children and how they are wired, we can hopefully parent them better, right? The Chinese zodiac can be another useful and fascinating source to find out more about our children’s natural attributes and charms — and give us parents some intelligence about how best to raise them to achieve their full potential.

Lunar New Year begins on Feb. 17, 2026, and children born during this year will be under the sign of the Horse. The mercurial and lovable Horse is a happy-go-lucky daredevil who requires and demands plenty of room to move. Cheerful, popular and quick-witted, the Horse loves nature, animals, sports and, most of all, adventure. The Horse prefers to be unbridled (ha!) and tends to be disobedient when they are forcibly prevented from doing what they want to do.

If you’re expecting a little Horse, congratulations! Kids born under the sign of the Horse not only have a gift of the gab but a stunning knack for creative problem-solving. Even when life dishes up a defeat, your Horse child’s spirits remain unsinkable. They’ll just come up with an even more clever idea next time!

To discover more about your child’s personality and natural gifts, locate his or her date of birth and corresponding Chinese zodiac sign in the table below, and be sure to read your own profile to see if you recognize the child within you.

• The Rat Child

• The Ox Child

• The Tiger Child

• The Rabbit Child

• The Dragon Child

• The Snake Child

• The Horse Child

• The Sheep Child

• The Monkey Child

• The Rooster Child

• The Dog Child

• The Pig Child

Chinese Calendar 1991–2026

For complete tables, check the Wikipedia.org Chinese zodiac entry.

Editor’s note: This article was first published several years ago and was most recently updated by ParentMap’s content editor, Kari Hanson, on Jan. 6, 2026, with updated information for the Year of the Horse.