When did parents start using leashes on their kids?

You use brackets like this: <i>quote</i> (see the FAQ link below for more)

thanks StanM!

I have yet to forgive her for buying it or myself for using it.

(Although in retrospect, it must have looked pretty funny).

short leash. like I'm having to use with my young dog. Don't know if the choke training collar would also apply.

I do think it looks silly but that's probably only b/c it's something rarely seen. If it were more common, I doubt it would look odd. I wouldn't criticze the parents b/c you don't know what the situation is with their child. There could have been a frightening incident in the past (like with Maria's brother) or the child could have emotional/behavorial disorders that make him very hard to control in public.

whatever. far more distressing to me is when I see a child hit/spanked in public.

OTM

I went into teaching anti-spanking and came out unsure about how I felt. But doing it in public (or in front of their classmates/friends) is unneccesarily humilating.

IT'S NEW TO ME!!!!!

I completely disagree.

OTM

OTM my arse. They got cars where you live? My youngest ran about like a nutcase for a few months and had no road sense whatsoever. Giving him a calm sensible lecture is all well and good but it's difficult for him to realise the consequences of running in front of a car. If he wasn't on a 'leash' I would have ended up chasing him everywhere and living in perpetual fear of him being run over. Getting hit by a car might have taught him a lesson, but only if he survived it.

It's easy to say it's my fault for not teaching him road safety well enough. Even if that's the case it doesn't make it right to allow him to be fucking killed.

It's my fault officer, I couldn't get him to understand 'stop, look and listen'.
Why didn't you restrain him?
Because someone on ILX said it was an appalling example of lazy parenting and some other people thought it loked a bit embarrassing. I figured letting the poor kid die was the only option.

Too bad cause I probably wont be able to stop when/if I these freakish things again.

The phrase LAUGHABLY FUCKING NAIVE LACK OF EXPERIENCE would spring to mind here if I was the bolshy type.

i think that's called 'parenting'
Don't make a sanctimonious arse of yourself.

. however, mine is just taking her first steps so i may have to revise that opinion in a few months

Relatively open mind for a nanosecond there, just before she explained to me why I'm a bad man for looking after my son.

xpost

I typed a whole answer as justifying circumstances, but I'm out.

i have one daughter (9 months) and i care for my neice and nephew (4 and 2) 45-50 hours a week. we often go grocery shopping and running errands throughout the day and i never have needed a leash. i don't think that is due to my super human abilities.

and i don't think that anyone is a 'bad man' for using a leash. to each his own. i do feel that it is lazy and it is not necessary. sorry if i have crushed your self esteem.

The conjunction of these two sentences made my head blow up.

I say that granting that in the other 20% of cases you will, yes, see either (a) the sad spectacle of a perfectly orderly kid nonetheless tethered, presumably out of paranoia, and sometimes at disturbingly advanced ages, or (b) worse, the parent who stands there having a long conversation or paying attention to something else entirely, while, at the end of the leash, the child runs around raising hell. (I guess people do this with very small dogs, as well.) Which is dumb, for the obvious reasons, and also dangerous, because relying on the leash as some kind of magical protection will, yeah, not keep the kid from eating thumbtacks, punching strangers in the nuts, or trying to hug vicious dogs.

There is a day care close to DU, in the mornings I see them taking the kids for a walk on the low traffic semi-urban sidewalks when the weather allows. These are 3 year olds it looks like They are either holding onto, or somehow affixed to a 10 yard long run of webbing, 2 abreast by maybe 8 kids long. I'm here to say. One kid on a leash: demeaning oppression. 16 kid toddler chaingang: TOTALLY TWEE-DORABLE! Will add, they always seem happy enough. Now MUSH!

you should attach a hamster water bottle to its cage and i am sure it will thrive.

It probably is marginally less safe than holding hands, but if the adult is spending half the time shaking the feeling back into their arm then holding hands isn't really comparable.

http://au.geocities.com/safety4baby/images/ToddlerReins.jpg

but just like a dog-leash.

This was at the football on a busy staircase where 34 year old me and 35 year old Onimo once got separated by the crowd, so, yeah, still necessary for hanging onto toddlers you don't want disappearing.

I used to think leashes were absurd, but when I read shit like this it makes me think otherwise.

-- Andrew (n...), June 28th, 2006 3:27 AM. (enneff) (link)

(Except, what are the chances? Do they really justify being paranoid 24/7?)

"stop being ridiculous" eh? ok then ;-)

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/178/372087383_2b726fa5b2.jpg

(I just came across this on random, and wanted to mention about the kid I saw on a leash in a necessary situation. Anyone wanting to reiterate themselves, feel free. I stand by everything I said upthread)

The humiliation aspect: I remember my mum looking after a friend's kid, aged about 5 or 6, and threatening him that if he didn't behave when walking home from the village, she would put him on the reins (which she'd kept from when I was small). She only had to take them with her and show him, for him to immediately start behaving himself.

Sheesh, Ailsa, you always take people seriously,don't you? He said:"(Except, what are the chances? Do they really justify being paranoid 24/7?)" He wasn't talking about leashing the kid all the time. Or maybe I didn't understand correctly...

Anyway, use whatever you want if it means keeping your kid safe. A leash will hardly hurt a kid (emotionally nor physically). People should give it a fucking rest, what with pushing their opinoins on others thinking that's the way it should be. Parenting is a hard job, an accident can quickly happen. If a leash can prevent that, why not use it?

We have one of these! Flickr friends will know how adorable Ava looks in it.