When our daughter was a toddler, we lived aboard a sailboat at the end of a fairly long dock. Her harness and leash (in pink, of course) was pretty much a necessity You try carrying a purse, a bag of baby supplies, and groceries or laundry, AND a toddler from the parking lot down a 170’ long, 6’ wide, somewhat uneven wooden deck. It was also nice in the mall because she had the illusion of independence and she could lead the way to whatever window she wanted to see, with us about a pace behind.
Of all the things we subjected her to, the leash would have been the least damaging… :eek:
I have never had my own kids but I’ve taken care of plenty and those little bastards can run. You turn your back for a second and they can be twenty feet or more away, little legs pumping, and they are damn good at dodging when you try to catch them, too. In dangerous places I don’t understand why more parents don’t use the leashes. They are a useful invention for active children.
If I thought I could get away with it, I’d buy the damn things by the case and hand them out to parents who need them but clearly have never heard that they exist.
Heyyy, johnpost, s’up dawg? Listen, a few years ago a drunk driver shattered my spine and it’s welded stiff with donor bone, stainless, and titanium. I’m tall, not very bendy and have a ten month old who I will soon worry about in busy stores and parking lots since I’m partially handicapped. I was just wondering if I could get your approval to use a leash on the toddler I love more than life itself until she’s old enough to follow verbal instructions reliably? Thanks in advance for your understanding and empathy.
I don’t have kids, but my mother used one for my sister and it saved her sanity. I never needed one, but my sister was the escape artist extraordinare. Once she got the leash, no more of that! I always saw little kids wearing the backpack ones when I worked at the Science Center, and I always thought they were cute. The one my mother used was just a long, phone-cord type wrist-to-wrist thing.
No matter how much you pay attention, kids can still pull away from your hand, and it’s easy to get lost in a big crowd. And with some kids, it’s the best solution. (How is it any different from holding hands?)
It’s not a necessity, but it is a very great comfort and convenience.
My use was not so much to prevent the kid from getting lost in crowds, but to prevent the kid from darting out into the road when out walking.
Maybe some kids are more aware, but mine when just past the toddler stage (that is, able to walk - and run! - everywhere) was not so good on being mindful. He may know perfectly well that he’s not supposed to ever dart out into the road, or indeed step foot on the road without holding an adult’s hand, but he was very easily distracted by a passing butterfly, or an interesting leaf, or whatever.
The fear is he’d dart right out into the road before anyone could catch him (he was very, very fast), and a motorist wouldn’t have a chance of stopping in time.
The alternative would be to hold his hand all the time when near a danger spot, like traffic. But he didn’t like that very much. Holding daddy’s hand meant he couldn’t do anything else (I’m 6’).
So it was more convenient to the toddler (who got the comparative freedom to explore stuff, rather than standing and walking with his arm held straight upwards); it gives peace of mind to the parent; and most important, it may prevent a tragedy that would utterly destroy several lives (I include the unfortunate motorist in this). I’m not really seeing a downside, other than “hur hur u a dog?”.
Ages ago when my first nephew was two, I went Christmas shopping with my sister-in-law and said nephew because it takes two people to shop with a two year-old. About an hour into the expedition I suddenly said, “I just got an idea that’ll make me a million dollars. You know those hamster balls you can seal them in so they can roll around the house without the cat eating 'em? Imagine one about yay high.”
S-i-L thought it an awful idea but a few years later when the second nephew was two in his turn, she told me, “I’ve been thinking about that ball idea of yours.”
I’ve really never understood why anybody in the world would put their nose in the air about leashes (although I know they do!) Seriously, they must never have had the experience of looking away for ONE SECOND and having a toddler disappear. I don’t even have kids and I’ve had that happen to me.
Cool. As I’ve often said, each parent is free to fuck their kids up however they wish!
Hell, a leash - when used responsibly - is no big deal.
It’s weird, tho, that I never felt the need for one. Never seemed to be a problem to teach my 3 kids (or my many dogs) not to dart out into traffic. And holding hands never struck me (or my kids, to the best of my knowledge) as unpleasant (6’3" BTW). I guess I might be overstrict in my childrearing, in that I took many public, non-kid oriented places as opportunities to teach my kids how they ought to behave in such places. And if handholding and constant attention is what it took, well, I thought that a fair tradeoff.
A subtle distinction might concern how different folk view various places, and the role of kids in them. I tend to think there are some places that are essentially adult places, where certain types of behavior are desireable to respect other people’s quiet enjoyment. One example would be a commuter train, or a nice restaurant. When my kids were in such places, they clearly knew that they were not to disturb the other commuters or diners. But many other folk seem more tolerant than me of “kids being kids.” Disruptive behavior is disruptive behavior, whether by a boisterous kid, a crying infant, a group of drunken young adults, or some yahoo shouting into his cellphone. Yeah, I am an old crank.
Leashes (and leash–using parents) absolutely suck, however, when the parent is using it as a substitute for paying attention to or teaching the kid, and letting them get into stuff and annoy other people at the far end of their tether as they yak on their phone. Probably the exception which is most noticeable…
I’d agree completely, but I can’t think of a time I’ve ever seen this. Bratty kids getting into things and annoying people, sure, but almost never at the end of a leash. My observation is that parents who use one tend to be overly observant and protective rather than the other way around.
I’ve never used one myself, but have used plenty of other objects in lieu of holding hands. We’ve held bags, and skirts, carts, and pinkies so as to fit several hands in mine. If it’s just me doing the holding and the child having the freedom to move then so much the better.
We didn’t use a leash, but had a little handle/strap which was attached to the pram. Gave her a sense of independence (and she loved helping to pull the pram) while keeping her nearby. What it also did that a leash might not do is teach her the rules of walking in public; she had to choose to keep holding onto the handle or walking near to us, or she was put back in the pram. I think she learned the consequences thing much quicker this way.
Then again, you have to be on top of your game because at this age (2 to just before 3) they are prone to just darting away, and the chase me game can be irresistible. If I lived in a place with much more traffic than I do, perhaps we might have considered the leash on occasion.
I think leashes are great, for certain little kids in certain situations. I used them a few times in potentially dangerous places with my speedier toddlers who were going through a brief bolting phase. I also have a kid who has always acted like a sedate 40 year old.
I have a friend who uses a leash with her autistic son. It’s a lifesaver for him.
Obviously, my kid learned how to do that, too. And once he learned, the leash ceased to be useful.
However, he was not born knowing it. The leash was used in the interim between him (a) being able to walk, and (b) knowing better than to dart suddenly.
If your kids had no such interval, in that as soon as they could walk they never, not once, darted somewhere inappropriate or dangerous - well, you were lucky. And your kids were very easy.
How is that even physically possible? When I stand upright, my toddler had to reach straight upward to hold my hand - and I’m 3" shorter than you.
This, to be frank, has nothing to do with the issue. We are talking about kids too young to know not to engage in dangerous behaviours, not about allowing kids to run riot.
I did not use these on my two kids, and I have nothing against anyone who see them as useful for percieved dangerous situations, as the OP describes. I have seen them used in places where there seemed to be no danger at all, like a level, paved walkway in a park. In that case, it looked like they were walking their dog.
The alternative it so do what one of my neighbors did, just hold the child until they are too big. I swear their son’s feet never touched the ground until he was 3 years old. I think the leashes are a better option.
This. My daughter was an exceptionally good kid, but toddlers can have the best intentions in the world, and promise to stay right with mommy or daddy, and they will forget this promise in the next 10 seconds. They don’t mean to be bad, it’s just that they are not capable of remembering how to behave yet when they are confronted with a shiny. I certainly paid attention to my daughter whether I had her on a leash or not. For instance, I would notice if she was starting to get hungry, or bored, or tired. And when she was old enough to use the bathroom, if she said she had to go, then I made finding a bathroom THE top priority. I’ve seen many parents expect their very young kids to hold it indefinitely.
The leash I had consisted of a harness that zipped up the back along with the leash. It had straps to restrain the child in a cart or high chair, and that was a lifesaver.
I only used the leash when we were in a place where it wasn’t OK for her to run around. She went to parks and other places where she could run and jump and turn cartwheels to her heart’s content.
I held a leash in an airport once. The poor woman had 2 year old twins who were going totally nuts after a 3 hour wait. I really felt sorry for her and wanted to help, but I would not have been willing to actually hold a squirming toddler long enough for her to change a diaper.
This.
I don’t have kids, but I have also taken care of many. Anaamika is right. They are fast and sneaky and they don’t know to not run out in front of cars. I’ve never seen anyone use the leash to not pay attention to their toddler, just to control said toddler.
Now…one day I eating lunch at a fast food place and a woman came in with her daughter. They held hands while they were in line, but when it came time for the woman to talk to the employee and pay, she let her daughter go. They were wearing a short leash with Velcro bracelets. The girl was good for about 30 seconds, then quietly took her bracelet off and put it around the leg of a high chair and went off to explore.
The look on the mothers face when she started to walk out with a high chair was so priceless.
Heh – I have no objection to child leashes but this struck me as funny because it does sound like how a dog reacts to seeing his person grab the leash.
Heck, when I was young, my aunt used to literally leash my young cousin to a tree when we were playing outside. Whereupon, us older kids would get just outside of his leash range and taunt him.
