I just saw a lady that was walking up the sidewalk with a little girl on a leash.  She appeared to be about 4 years old and had a harness around her.  Next to her was, I suspect, her mother walking her like a dog.  What kind of person puts their child on a leash.  Teach your children well and you will not need a leash.  My dog does not need one, because I trained him, although I am required by law to have him on one.  But your kid...............c'mon people.

Good grief! I will also bet this is the type of person that says we shouldn't have guns because a kid might pick one up. There are always some looking for the easy way out of any situation, instead of actually teaching their kids to be responsible.

may not be because the kid isnt trained or smart. ive seen leashes on kids for years. (disney, six flags, mostly crowded areas) but you have to think about the fucks who take kids and hold them for ransom. in today's world, you gotta do what you gotta do.. specially when it comes to your children.

My opinion on this is that the parents just don't want to be troubled to devote their full attention to the child like they should be.  Many will say it's just a tool to help them keep an eye on the child but I thinks it's a bad tool.

Are you sure it wasn't a really big ferret? Looks can be deceiving :)

Then again, if it saves just one life..! It's for the chuldren! (Seen a click-it or ticket commercial last night, followed immediately by a spot from the American Dental Association, urging kids to wear a mouthguard at all times)

Sven,

Never had kids, huh?

My most frightening times as the father of two baby girls was when they were old enough to walk and we were in crowded places (stores, malls, etc.). A child can slip their hand out of yours and get out of sight in an microsecond, resulting in heart-stopping panic for the parent.

I never used a leash, but I would not condemn someone who did.  They are keepin the kid safe as best they can.

Leashing children is pretty common in Europe.  Apparently they have advanced ahead of us in the "parents who aren't worth a hot shit on a cold night" arena.  Now the leashing technique of child control has lept the pond and taken a tick-tight grip in America.



I'm sorry, I spent way too long reading Blatherisms on [url]ratherbiased.com[/url].

A kid leash works well in crowded areas where you may have more than one little one to keep track of, and might have to let go of a tiny hand for a second, (like in a grocery store or mall, for example).
It also works great to pull up on, and save the little one from a nasty fall and scraped knees, (or worse).
I had two tiny male demon children very close in age, and the leashes worked wonders in preventing Toddler Escape and Evasion in crowded places.
Some kids NEED leashes, regardless of training.

(edited to add: Kid leashes have been around since at least the 50s, as I remember my little brother having one too.)

I would never put a leash on my kid, but I have to admit I laugh my arse off whenever I see a kid on a leash.  

They've been around for a few years, but I have to agree that they are for those who don't wish to be bothered supervising their kids.

Worst thing I ever saw was a woman who used it to tie her kid to a clothing rack while she shopped. I was with my girlfriend at the time, and she knows how I hate shopping with her, so I was in a foul mood anyways. I just turned to the girlfriend and said:

ME: "Look, Hon. They sell children here too!
    Can we get it?"

GF: "I don't see a price tag..must be a free sample. Why don't you take it and tie it to the bumper until we're done shopping".

ME: "Nah, never mind. Looks like its been used. I'm going to the toy department and see if they have any in better condition running around loose".

The mother got the point. She untied the kid, picked it up and carried her out of the store.

Not where I grew up! (Well they just fenced in the whole fscking country)

Leashes are fine,  I kind of draw the line at choke chains though.

I hate it when parents who have their kids on leashes!

Gotta run, now, but I'll tell you why later.

Eric The(CourtBound)Hun[>]:)]

Teaching works well with children old enough to understand "if/then" statements.  But with toddlers, concepts such as "Hold my hand while we cross the parking lot" don't communicate very well.

Leashes are for dogs! Shock collars are for kids, used them on mine, never had any troubles...

Speaking as a prior 'leash-ee'...

When I was a tyke, I was a quite large one, while my mother was this tiny little 5' gal. And I was a pretty spur-of-the-moment hard-charging kid too; apparently I'd just jump up and start running. And they were afraid I'd jump into traffic.

This, combined with the fact that I was crazy for electrical things (i.e., liked to check out wall outlets, flip switches, turn knobs, etc.) led to the leash solution. Folks later told me that they got 50-50 praise vs. condemnation from onlookers.

So this lasted for a little bit (maybe a year?) 'til I outgrew leash & settled down a bit.  And this, BTW, was in the city.

I am alive and unscarred. Or, actually, deeply scarred - perhaps I buy lots of guns to get that nice feeling of safety & security ;-)



Bill Wiese
San Mateo, CA

OK, so I've got a few more moments before I run off to Court, but let me say this about the not-so-common practice that some parents have of placing their young children on leashes - it's pure crap!

Now, I can undertand physically challenged parents who may be in a wheelchair or with prosthetic devices that may make running after a small child difficult, if not impossible!

Such parents may simply have no other choice.

And I would suppose that taking quintuplets to the Mall would be an ordeal, but if you're not up to handling it, stay home!

It is a disgrace for a healthy woman to use a leash on her children that even dogs and some dog owners disapprove of!

Eric The(SimplyOut)Hun[>]:)]

u got kids eric?

redray, I agree with you entirely! Let anyone who condemns a toddler leash take their kids to something like the Hillbilly Days festival in Pikeville, KY and see if they don't change their minds very quickly. Let them try to handle a toddler in a group of thousands of individuals walking the streets visiting street vendors and food stands not too mention the shriners coming through the crowds on their Hillbilly-mobiles, ATVs, Mules, etc. They will understand the concept.

Jake

When I was little, my mom would use a leash on me when we went somewhere with a lot of people (like carnivals, US Space and Rocket Center, etc etc. . .).  I don't see anything wrong with it.  It's not like it's attached to my neck or anything, and it kept me from getting lost (which I had a tendency to do).

There is nothing wrong with putting your kid on a leash (as long as it's not around the kid's neck).  It will not emotionally scar them at all, and it will keep them from getting lost.  Can someone give me a downside to them?  'Cause I can't think of any.

So i guess my idea for Velcro based toddler clothing to keep them from running amok in the parent's home wouldn't sell well to this group?

Extra 'restraint pads' available, including crib mattress pad, high chair seat cover, bathtub mat, and special high strength pads for those difficult to monitor stairways...

wannabe

(j/k of course)

[img]http://www.iserv.net/~tiggger/images/mmmbottle.jpg[/img]



(my daughter is One Year Old today...!!)

Post from redray -

Yes, but they're in their thirties!

I have three rugrat grandkids that Miz Hun and I take to the mall all rhe time.

I've taken all three to the mall by myself, with no problem, and I'm not in great shape.

So your point is I should use a leash with them?

I don't think so. They're my grandchildren, not my pets.

Eric The(I'dStayHomeBeforeI'dUseALeash!)Hun[>]:)]

Now what's going to leave the deeper traumatic psychological scars? The leash or the Hillbilly Days?

Every parent has a ready made leash...

ITS CALLED YOU HAND!!!


I never had any trouble deploying mine even in HUGE crowds..

If it got too bad I could always resort to the old....two hand leash. AKA carry them..


Actually you should learn to enjoy it....for far too soon they will be too big for either!

Skip the leash, go directly to shock collar or as the liberals will call it "child behavior modification device."

We now call kids who are easily bored and excitable "ADD-HAD" instead of the old term "NORMAL" and we got them whacked up on Ritalin aka "Childrens Prozac" and people are really surprised when the same parents put a leash on them?

"[i]My opinion on this is that the parents just don't want to be troubled to devote their full attention to the child like they should be. Many will say it's just a tool to help them keep an eye on the child but I thinks it's a bad tool.[/i]"

You're wrong.  My parents care about me and my siblings a LOT.  They pay attention to us, help us, etc. etc. etc..  But parents aren't perfect.  Kids can escape from their parents quite easily in a busy place, no matter how watchful the parent is.  Some parents care about their kids SO MUCH that they put a leash on them.

And they're not for training.  It's just safety.  Some kids are too little to understand that they need to stay near their parents.

"[i]Every parent has a ready made leash...

ITS CALLED YOU HAND!!![/i]"

Sometimes parents have to use their hands for other things, and besides, some parents have more than two kids.  DUHHH.

"[i]We now call kids who are easily bored and excitable "ADD-HAD" instead of the old term "NORMAL" and we got them whacked up on Ritalin aka "Childrens Prozac" and people are really surprised when the same parents put a leash on them?[/i]"

You know, you guys should listen to yourself.  You are saying something is bad even though you obviously know nothing about it.  My parents are completely against things like "children's prozac", because they know that it's natural for kids to act like kids.  But they do believe in leashes, because it's just common sense!  There is not one thing wrong with leashes.  They can only help, and they can help a lot.  Not only do they help parents keep track of their kids, they make it hard for kidnappers to take a kid, and also they can use the leash to keep a kid from falling down.  I should know, I was saved many a scrape by my mother pulling on the leash.

The FREE kids make fun of you.

Right on, [b]SteyrAUG[/b]!

I know damn well I'd be making fun of the LEASHED kids, if my parents had the good sense to trust their parental abilities and leave me FREE!

Eric The(Special)Hun[>]:)]

We make fun of you anyway, so whats the difference?  [:D]

I was never made fun of for having a leash.

Well, [b]djk[/b], looking as I looked back in the early 1950s, and having a leash on me as well, I might have drawn laughter from the kids, but their parents would have been very depressed and would have hugged their children even tighter when they got them home.

Eric The(UsefulAsAWarning)Hun[>]:)]

Post from Greenhorn -

No, I think you'd better change that to:

'I was never made fun of for having a leash, [u]that I know of[/u].'

Eric The(Cynical)Hun[>]:)]

Leashing kids is wrong.  The easiest way of thinking if something is OK for a kid or not is to decide if you would like to to be used on you if you go senile in your older years.  Because almost all of the inventions used on kids are eventually used on the elderly.  If I go senile 60 years from now and my kids put a leash on me to keep me from wandering away and getting lost, I will be seriously pissed off.  I would rather know I will wander off into some alley and get killed for my wallet when I'm in my 80's than think of myself being stuck on a leash virtually dragged behind my own family.

Parents do not put leashes on kids because they do not care about them much.  I can't say enough good things about my parents.  Leashes have nothing to do with the abilities and goodness of the parents, except perhaps that parents who use leashes might care about their kids more.  It is merely a matter of safety.  In my experience, leashes do not cause hurt feelings, bitter resentment, annoyance, or anything even remotely like that toward the parents.

hey eric, what greenhorn said.

How many of you people who say they should be paying attention have ever been in a car wreck or just had an accident that could have been avoided had you been paying attention?  Second, how many of you who are speaking up in this thread actually have kids?  Because nothing is funnier to a parent than some smart ass who hasn't done the time raising a child telling those of us who have how to raise them.

With that said, some kids need to be leashed in public.  My little brother was a prime example.  We used to call him Houdini because he could escape from just about anything, and when he did he was off and running.  One morning my mom woke up at 6am to a phone call from the neighbor across the street because my 3 year old little brother had climbed out of his bed, unlocked the front door, opened the gate and then walked across the street to our neighbor's house.  She found him crying on their lawn and called my mom.  He once escaped from between a 3" gap between a brick wall and a chain link fence at the Baptist church we attended as kids.  He was out with the rest of his Sunday school class, and the next minute he was walking in the front door.  He was about two at the time.  I could give you countless other examples, including many where my mom or dad was holding his hand when he just bolted off.

He loved to run off and hide, which drove my poor mom crazy to no end.  She was at a cloth store when he was two buying some material to make a halloween costume for him, and he slipped his hand out of hers, ran off, and hid before she could turn around to catch him.  She had no idea where he went, and after we searched for him for 20 minutes she was heartbroken.  Turns out he hid on one of the cloth tables, as it had storage areas in it.  Then, when someone left the store he followed them out and walked 200ft into the parking lot of a K-Mart.  At that point, two nice old ladies spotted him and asked him where his mom was.  He said she was sewing, so they took him to the cloth store where my poor mother was hysterical and in tears.  After this happened, my mom never left the house without a leash that went on his wrist and hers.  It immediately solved his running away problem until he was old enough to know better.

So, you can talk about how bad leashes are all you want, but I hope and pray each and every one of you ends up with a kid that requires one.  It becomes a whole different ball game when it's your 3 year old who doesn't understand the whole concept of cause and effect.  Try asking a 3 year old why something happened or why they did something, and you'll get no answer because they don't understand the question.  Of course, someone who leashes their kid to a fixed object while they shop deserves to be told off, as that's just wrong.

For the record, I don't leash my kids, but I also know that sometimes it keeps the kid from getting killed.  A small child doesn't understand the world is a dangerous place.  

God Bless Texas

"[i]Leashing kids is wrong. The easiest way of thinking if something is OK for a kid or not is to decide if you would like to to be used on you if you go senile in your older years. Because almost all of the inventions used on kids are eventually used on the elderly. If I go senile 60 years from now and my kids put a leash on me to keep me from wandering away and getting lost, I will be seriously pissed off. I would rather know I will wander off into some alley and get killed for my wallet when I'm in my 80's than think of myself being stuck on a leash virtually dragged behind my own family.[/i]"

Wrong wrong wrong.  Apples and oranges.  It is the responsibility of the parent to keep their kids safe.  If you're old, it's up to you if you want to go and get lost or killed.  If you're a kid, it's NOT up to you.

And besides, I wasn't pissed off at having a leash.  Not in the least.  And if you're truely senile, that is senile enough to go wandering off without thinking, you wouldn't mind having a leash because you'd be too senile to understand it.

Actually it should be 'I was never made fun of for having a leash, [u]until today[/u].'

[img]216.40.249.192/mysmilies/contrib/blackeye/lol.gif[/img]

[img]www.plauder-smilies.de/happy/roflmao.gif[/img]

Honestly, I've never seen a two or three year old make fun of anyone unless they were taught to do it.  They just don't understand the differences between them and other kids enough to know to ridicule something about another kid.  Five or 6 year olds, on the other hand, will make fun of others but that's a bit old for leashing, as any normal 5 or 6 year old should understand cause and effect, like "Run away and I swat your behind."

God Bless Texas

A leash is good as long as it is used a tool, and not a crutch for unnatentative parents.

Barring a medical miracle, I won't be nearly as energetic at age 90 as most children are at age 2.  They'll be able to restrict my mobility just by taking away my cane. [;)]

No sir, I wont let anyone put a leash on my 3 yr old.  I'd rather treat him like a little person than a puppy.

I wont presume to tell another parent how to train their pets though.  [sorta-smiley]

Know nothing about it?  I've got three boys, ages 7-15.  While my kids were young I was a stay at home dad.  My wife is a teacher, I was working nights so I took care of the kids from day one.  I took them everywhere I went and never had any problems with them running wild in public places because I taught them respect and discipline from the start.  

Every parent I have ever seen with a child on a leash has always been walking 5ft ahead of the child paying absolutely no attention to what the child is doing.  Someone could have attached a dog or a wagon to the leash and the parents would not have had any idea.  

If you are going to care for a child, care for them.  Leashes are for pets.

Leashes have been used for kids for a LOOOONG time, probably on the order of 5 thousand years or so.  Why?  Simple expedience.  Most parents I know are busy folks.  Each of us works our job and we jam time into our schedules to do the now-work stuff we need to do as well as maybe a few fun things.  Most often we end up bringing our kids along while we run errands  and that means, inevitably, we've got to take our hands off them while we take something off the shelf, put something back, try on clothing, pay the cashier, etc.  Some kids take those opportunities to explore their interests elsewhere.  A tether keeps them from getting very far and getting into trouble.

This has been true for thousands of years, and for thousands of years parents have been thinking up inventive ways of keeping their kids close.  We fence them into our yards, fence them into a play pen or playroom, put difficult to operate doorknob covers on our doors so the kids can't open them, put tamper resistant locks on cabinets, etc. Are you offended that we are putting kids into kennels?

No, we are just restricting their movements to keep them out of trouble.

It isn't inhumane unless you never let the kids out of their restricted play areas.

But I'll make it even simpler:  Is the gun evil in and of it's own self or is the evil in how it is used?

Well guess what, the same principle applies to babygates and child tethers.  You can use them well or you can use them badly, but simple use of the device isn't wrong.

Of course it's easier to just harangue the thing and those who use it than it is to actually attempt to understand it.

Leashes on kids for 5000 years or so?

Lord, I thought I knew a lot about history, but apparently I don't when it comes to the history of child-rearing throughout the ages.

Just what civilizations in the past used leashes on their children?

Eric The(Inquiring)Hun[>]:)]

Baby gate and child tethers?    That's like saying are we going to fence the yard or tie the dog.  So if you don't have a baby gate to keep your child off the stairs, and you are too busy to watch your child you are going to TETHER them to the leg of a table?

Here's a nice commentary on the practice by a young lady - [url]http://www.silverdragon.com/punkie/cybertusk/leash.html[/url]

Here's an excellent quote:

"When they were out of earshot, my friend leaned towards me and whispered (sarcastically), [b]"I used to have a pet like that, but it gained its own independence and sense of self-worth, so I had to put it down."[/b]

Dogs have leashes. Horses need to be restrained because they don't know better. I guess you could say the same of toddlers. But toddlers evolve into thinking human beings. Leashes are a strong physical restraint from master to servant. They are appropriate on animals and sex games, but not for children.

"But he's so active!" I heard from parents. "It's a safety harness, to prevent kidnapping," say some others. Bullshit. Leashes are lazy tools for parents who don't want to spend time being with their child, but for some reason or another, can't find a babysitter. It is a crude, cheap tool used for restraint. For those who give me those excuses above, I have two words for you:

Hold hands."

Eric The(MyThoughtsPrecisely)Hun[>]:)]

Did you ever think the parent couldve had a physical disability that might prevent him/her from chasing the kid in case he decides to split out into traffic?

Did you ever think the child may be autistic or another mental disability that might make him run out into the middle of traffic?

I have both, a physical disability and an autistic child, I havent used a "teather", but be darned sure if it came down to it and I *know* I may need it, I will.


Thanks

_______________________
I was never here!

I was gonna try an argue my point nicely but the bashing has begun so...I had to wear a leash for awhile because I was a bullheaded, rambunctious, adventuresome little boy who was mostly well behaved but occasionally got out of hand. If there was a petting zoo on the other side of the mall I was there and I would wait for my parents to look away. Used responsibly a leash isn't bad parenting it's watching out for your spirited child. I haven't used one on my child but I will before i'll have a cop walk up to me an say "we found your kids head in the lake, sorry". Oh and while you guys were making fun of us for wearing leashes we were making fun of you for wearing pantyhose, after all you were mommies little boy.

Such wonderful advice, typical of those who have only a theoretical interest in the subject.  What if there are three kids?  What if the parent is carrying a bag of groceries and has two kids?  Is the parents just supposed to stay home (as was also suggested above)?

Personally, I use MRW's method, and it works 99.9% of the time.  But it is the 0.1% that scares you, and that is totally within the child's control.  As you note, the child is a free agent.  Praise Allah that it is so!  I will not begrudge a parent that chooses not to take that risk.

All of this blather about how kids will damaged by a leash is unsubstantiated guessing.  Any scientific evidence?  If there was, you know Hillary and her crowd would make leashing a kid a felony.

I say it is the parent's choice.  Not the village's choice, and not the choice of a bunch of armchair commandos who have no experience with little kids.  That is rich!  Armchair commandos becoming armchair parents!  Just goes to show, the whole live and let live attitude of the 2nd amendment crowd is a sham.