Because of my coursework and career, I spend a lot of time on forums dedicated to discussing parrots and other birds in order to keep up with current trends in the parrot community and gain an understanding of the struggles people face with their birds. I have also had the privilege of working alongside my local parrot rescue, hearing first hand the challenges people adopting a new bird or those that choose to surrender their birds face. So often, people struggle to bond with their birds or their bird shows little interest in spending time with them. As a result, I have seen and heard the same question be asked over and over again.  Let’s take a closer look at what people mean when they ask “How can I get my bird to like me?” and some possible solutions to some of the issues they are facing. 

Examining the Question

Before we can even address a person’s concerns, we have to know what they mean when they ask the question. What do they mean when they say that they want the bird to “like” them? Do they want the bird to want to be more actively involved in their days? Or, do they want to simply be able to get them to step up without the bird biting? Before any solutions are offered or attempted, the first step is to understand what kind of relationship we want with our bird. Then, the second step is to accept that what we are picturing in our mind will likely not be exactly what we get. That's because every bird is an individual with its own unique boundaries, preferences, and personality. But that doesn’t mean that a healthy bond can’t be established.

Understanding the Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow was a well-known psychologist that studied human behavior and motivation. It's likely that you learned about his theory, the "hierarchy of needs” in school at some point. It's a great tool in understanding how our needs and motivations can be thought of as a hierarchy. In order to move up the tiers towards self-actualization and things like social fulfillment, some more baseline needs must be met first such as shelter, food and water, and safety. This idea, though originally created to help explain human motivation, can be adapted to help better understand a parrot’s motivation and needs as well. So, I suggest that we use it as a general guideline. We can further adapt it to our parrots specifically by learning about our parrot’s species and personality. Not all parrots are the same because there are many different species. Even within the same species, every single parrot is unique with its own personality, boundaries, and preferences. 

Observe your bird - don't just watch them. Be active in how you observe them. Notice patterns and behavior and take note of them. It will help us understand how we can form a healthy bond with our birds if we keep the hierarchy and our birds' unique personality in mind. 

Contribute to Their Health and Wellness

It is vitally important that our birds be healthy if we expect them to have a good quality of life and form a meaningful bond with us. We should get them regularly checked up at a vets office and provide them timely medical care when needed. We also need to provide them with a healthy diet though a formulated pellet and plenty of veggies. It's also important to make sure that they have a big enough cage, plenty of time to exercise through flight and foraging, and to ensure that their environment is free of dangers such as harmful chemicals, smoke, and threats from other animals just to name a few. I'll leave the details for you to discuss with your veterinarian, but those discussions should be one of the most important aspects of your parrot's care.

Establishing a Sense of Safety 

Before a bond can be built and nurtured, the bird has to feel safe. I'm going to spend a little more time on this topic, because I see so many people skip over this extremely important step. A bird that does not have a sense of trust and security with a person and their home will probably not want to work on a meaningful bond with them. Even if a bird has been in our home for a long time, if we do not create a safe, predictable environment for them, then they will likely not be able to have a healthy relationship with us. 

Let's look at it from a different point of view. Imagine a child that is in a home that lacks predictability and a feeling of safety from their parents. It would be hard for that child to feel comfortable confiding in their parents and they would likely be nervous initiating spending time with them. They might even avoid them altogether, opting instead to stay in their room or outside where they feel safe. While it's not a direct A to A comparison, the idea remains the same. In order for someone to feel safe exploring their world and relationships, they need to feel safe. This is an idea that has been repeatedly proven by psychologists and animal behavior specialists for years. 

Most of the time, a person doesn’t realize that they are creating a sense of insecurity and distrust with their bird. They often assume that if they keep pushing themselves on their bird, that eventually the bird will give in and want to spend time with them. More often, however, it is not the case. Unless the behavior that the person is displaying which is causing the insecurity and fear changes, the bird will remain insecure. Flooding them by forcing them to be in a situation that causes them distress without the ability to escape will only harm a relationship between human and bird. It is also cruel to continue to expose them to a distressing situation. Instead, we must learn to behave in ways that create a sense of trust and calm with our birds. Some ways that we can do so are:

Avoid Flooding Them
When it comes to our birds, flooding is when we expose them to a stimulus that causes them distress without the ability to escape, hoping that the fear and distress that it causes in them will disappear with enough exposure. Some ways we might be flooding our bird is by forcing them to be held by us or forcing them to be around something that scares them without proper training, systematic desensitization, and counter conditioning. Flooding might seem like a good idea at first because it seems to produce fast results, but it is actually going to create a very insecure bird that distrusts us and in the long-term will suffer from other issues as well.

Be a Little Predictable
Something that has worked wonders for me and the birds I rescued that have displayed fearful behavior and insecurity  is establishing a routine in my home. You don’t have to take it to an extreme and do exactly the same thing at the same time every day, but creating a somewhat predictable routine for your day to day life can help your bird feel safe. When they have a general expectation for things like bedtime, morning, and when your presence can be expected, that helps them to feel safe. 

Respect When They Say No
Birds vocalize and use body language to communicate with one another and with us. Often, if a bird doesn’t want to do something, they will give us signs. For example, if we go to get our bird to step up and they don’t want to, they will do things like put their head down for a moment or move their body away from us. These signs can be subtle, but they are always there. If you regularly force them to step up, etc, they’re much more likely to bite as a last resort of telling you “I don’t want this”. With enough negative interaction like this, they may start to just default to biting because they will learn that other signs just don’t work on us. Instead of using force, you can work with your bird by using positive reinforcement through training to get them to step up easily and perform other desirable behaviors.

These are just a few considerations when it comes to helping our bird feel safe and secure. 

Allow Them to Make Choices

Sometimes it's easy to forget that the animals we keep, especially ones as intelligent as parrots, need to be able to make choices for themselves in order to be confident, secure, and lead a more fulfilled life. We dictate what a parrot eats, when it comes out of its cage, what they can chew on and interact with, and everything else about their day. When we give our parrot opportunities to make choices for itself, we create a confident, happier parrot. When a parrot is more fulfilled, they are more likely to have healthy bonds with others. Training is an excellent way to give our parrot the opportunity to make choices. Some other ways we can provide them ways to make choices is giving them plenty of foraging opportunities, allowing them to fly by not clipping their wings, and making sure they have the space and ability to perform normal parrot behaviors. There’s a lot to this topic, so I highly recommend that anyone that has a bird look into some more information about choice making and training. 

Another great example of choice making is allowing your bird to come out of its cage in the morning when it wakes (as long as they are supervised and they can’t sneak into bed with someone and possibly be injured) instead of making them wait several hours for us. We can also allow them to go to bed when they are tired. One my birds, a Sun conure, will yell (because she’s a Sun conure and everything is LOUD) "go ninight!” at us every evening around the same time when she wants to go to bed. If we ignore her, she gets louder and will fly onto our heads as well. We give her a nighttime snack, sing her the goodnight song, and cover her cage when she requests to go to bed. These two examples also tie in with what we discussed earlier about establishing a routine with our birds. I will provide some links in the references section of this blog post to some resources that have been helpful to me regarding this topic and some of the others we are discussing. 

Be Someone That They Want to Be Around

We should take a look at our behaviors in order to think about whether or not our bird might want to spend time with us. Are we even-tempered, somewhat predictable, and compassionate? Or do we shout, act aggressively, behave in a chaotic manner, and are we perhaps even cruel at times? Of course, there is a whole spectrum in between these characteristics. But the point I’d like to make is that in order for our bird to want to spend time with us, we have to be pleasant to be around. This is also true for the other people in our home. No one should never yell at our birds, force them to interact with them, or act in a cruel way whatsoever. The manner in which we speak and behave matters to our birds and will have a direct effect on whether or not they want to be around us. 

Final Thoughts

This isn’t a whole, complete list of things that will help you bond with your parrot. But it's a great start. There are many valuable resources out there that can help you understand your bird better and foster a great relationship with them. Avoid social media sites and influencers when looking for information about your bird. Social media is heavy with misinformation and outdated advice that has been passed on from 20+ years ago that has since been proven false. Instead, look for experts and studies to guide you. Even when it comes to my blog posts, I want everyone to verify what I am saying. Look at the resources of every post and article that you come across to evaluate if what you’re being advised is accurate. 

Remember, parrots are extremely intelligent animals. Humans have often measured and rated animal intelligence against their own. However, just because their intelligence doesn’t always look like our own, doesn’t mean that it isn’t there or that it isn’t high. A bond between us and our bird is a mutual relationship and choice. When we respect our bird's intelligence and needs as an independent, unique life, we are much more likely to share a meaningful bond with them.  

References

Heidenreich, Barbara. “Getting in Touch with Their Feelings. Developing Sensitivity to Bird Behavior.” Barbara’s Force Free Animal Training Talk, Natural Encounters, Inc, naturalencounters.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Getting_In_Touch_With_Their_Feelings-Barbara_Heidenreich-1.pdf. Accessed 14 Aug. 2025. 

“Translating Parrot 3: Pamela Clark – Tips & Essential Practices for Parrots of All Sizes.” Lafeber Company - Official YouTube Channel, https://youtu.be/OCaboAUYQ2g?si=wXNRMeEna7ddqI40&t=584. 

Heidenreich, Barbara. “Addressing Parrot Behavior Problems.” July 2018, https://mickaboo.org/newsletter/jul18/work/Addressing%20Parrot%20Behaviour%20Problems.pdf.