Kids on leashes

[Narz]

Taking my lunch break in Bryant Park and saw a toddler on a leash stumbling by. What do you think of such developments? Would you put your kid on a leash? Were you ever leashed in your early years?

I wonder the long-term psychological implications.

 

[Hygro]

That ish is hella funny

 

[shadowplay]

I remember seeing little kids in the mall on these things back in the late 80s and early 90s... kind of like a phone cord attached to their shirt.

I haven't seen it in a long time, but I guess they're making a comeback.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

This is not a new thing. It's been around for at least the last 30 years. If a kid is apt to wander off, it's a sensible safety precaution.

Of course there's a couple of downsides - psychological, as you mention, and there's a risk of the leash getting tangled. I wouldn't recommend using a toddler-leash on an escalator, for example.

I wasn't leashed, although sometimes I think my mother would have done it if they were around in the '60s.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It certainly isn't new. Harmful in some way? No guess. Having had three kids who were fully versed in 'break three ways and they can't catch all of us' I can understand the attraction, but for someone with just one kid it seems pretty weak to me.

 

[Ryika]

Sounds like a good way to get your kids a taste of the adult life that is most likely waiting for them.

Joking aside, as long as you give them enough room to move around I'd assume the harm, if any, would be minimal. It's just another way to restrict movement, just like "cage"beds, or baby seats for example.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The main reasons for using them is to prevent a kid from running out into traffic or wandering away and getting lost in a store or mall. Another reason is to make it harder for someone to snatch the kid.

 

[JollyRoger]

I don't have children, but I have found that leashes are effective with certain employees and dating partners.

 

[Synobun]

I don't like them, mostly because the parents I see using them are also the parents who throw their hands up into the air and act confused that their child is misbehaved when said parent spends little to no time with their child and their form of discipline or education is simply shrieking at them.

It's anecdotal, of course. I am sure there are good parents out there who simply have a kid who doesn't know how to stay put and needs a helmet when out in public. I've yet to see that be the case.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Well, kids come in all kinds of mindsets and some benefit from the leashes in that they won't wander off (or at least won't get more than about 3 feet).

I was a wanderer, and probably annoyed the hell out of the staff at a couple of stores. I'd run up and down the aisles... at least until the day when I ran into the metal railing that separated one checkout aisle from another. It was at the perfect height to smack me right in the mouth. So off I went, hollering, "Mooooommm!" and bleeding all over the place. The lady at the bakery helped clean me up and my mother took me around the corner to the clinic.

No permanent harm done, but it did make me rethink my running around in that store.

Actually, this is probably why my mom didn't let me cross the street by myself until I was 8 years old (we lived on an acreage out of town at the time and didn't go into the city very often - and I was never allowed to cross the street unless an adult was with me).

 

[Broken_Erika]

I was a wanderer too, my parents even had to lock the doors to keep me from running off. One time when i was about 3 or 4 they turned their back on me for like 5 minutes and i was gone. They found me on the other side of the city.

 

[Synobun]

I was a wanderer too, my parents even had to lock the doors to keep me from running off. One time when i was about 3 or 4 they turned their back on me for like 5 minutes and i was gone. They found me on the other side of the city.

You're Barry Allen?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I was a wanderer too, my parents even had to lock the doors to keep me from running off. One time when i was about 3 or 4 they turned their back on me for like 5 minutes and i was gone. They found me on the other side of the city.

Sounds like you might be related to a dog we had, back in the '80s. Except he'd found some smelly stuff to roll in - not sure what, but when we got a call from the pound a week later, let's just say that we weren't happy at having to wait 3 days to get him an appointment at the groomer's. He was so matted and filthy that he was beyond amateur efforts.

 

[Colon]

I saw a whole group of toddlers on an excursion tied together 15-20 years ago. It seemed liked the face of the future then, but I've never seen it happen again.

 

[Gori the Grey]

That's the great thing about the future. What you saw could still turn out to be the face of it. And could still. And could.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

That's the great thing about the future. What you saw could still turn out to be the face of it. And could still. And could.

Communism will triumph. It is foretold.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I saw a whole group of toddlers on an excursion tied together 15-20 years ago. It seemed liked the face of the future then, but I've never seen it happen again.

How many adults were supervising them?

It seems like a whole different world from when my generation were children in the late '60s/early '70s. The school I attended in Grade 1 was a county school, but located within the city. We had an outing one day, when we were allowed to go to the local theatre and see a movie (one of the Tarzan movies, as I recall). There were no kid leashes, and I don't recall more than two teachers supervising us. We were a class of 6-year-old kids, and we walked from the school to the theatre - in two lines, holding the hand of a "buddy" (not sure why anyone thought that was a good idea; boys at that age hate holding hands, and a lot of girls find it awkward as well). We got to the theatre, watched the movie, and got back to the school, and everything was fine. Nobody wandered off, nobody got into trouble, and it was fun.

The first time I heard the term "play date" was in the late '80s, on a soap opera. It didn't make any sense - the kids in question weren't even 3 years old, and certainly wouldn't have cared one way or the other. But of course this was a soap so the play date was just an excuse for the two single parents to get together.

I grew up in a time when kids just decided for themselves if they wanted to play together. Assuming they weren't grounded or had other obligations like chores, mealtime, or some family thing, kids would spend hours playing at someone's home, at the playground, or exploring the neighborhood. As long as homework, chores, and meals were done at the proper time, parental control was minimal.

 

[Mise]

Tying several toddlers together seems like a good way of ensuring that they all get strangled at the same time.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Tying several toddlers together seems like a good way of ensuring that they all get strangled at the same time.

You do realize that the leash doesn't go around their necks, right? It's either attached to a harness the kid wears, a wristband, or waistband.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You do realize that the leash doesn't go around their necks, right? It's either attached to a harness the kid wears, a wristband, or waistband.

The leash, if long enough, still has potential. I wasn't thinking strangulation, but when I saw the 'bunch of kids leashed together' the first image that popped into my mind was a sort of 'ball of flesh wrapped in twine' thing.