Inspired by Have you ever almost done something horrible to your children?. A quote from a parent in that thread:
So, Doper parents, would you consider putting your kid in a kiddie leash, or not?
I fail to see the controversy. After all, your kid can get away from you just as quickly as your puppy, and has the exact same understanding of the reasons not to.
Sure, why not? It’s not much different from strapping them into a stroller, except the harness lets them walk around. If I had a kid that liked to run away, or had multiple small children to deal with, sure, I’d consider it.
When MaastrichtSon becomes a toddler, I would see no reason not to put him on a leash, either. But you see surprisingly few kiddie leashes on the streets and I get the feeling that they are frowned upon by non-parents, precisely because of the association with animals.
What I really feel sorry for are the toddlers with their littel arms almost hanging out of whack from holding their six-foot mum’s hand all the time, and that same mom being exhausted because of all the bags hanging from her other arm.
It seems the only alternative for a leash is strapping the kid down in a chair, but that gets boring for them quick, and what about the missed exercise?
Absolutely, especially somewhere like an amusement park or airport. It’s more comfortable for them than having to hold a hand all day.
Yeah, I don’t have kids, but I think toddler leashes are a fabulous idea. Somebody in another thread said her kid decided it was his dog costume, though, which was adorable but maybe not so great at Target. 
A good friend of mine was shopping and had his twin toddlers on a leash. A lady came up to him to admonish him for having them tethered and he asked her “Which one will you be chasing?”. She looked perplexed and he repeated " I will take off their leash, and when one bolts in one direction and the other bolts in the other direction, Which one will you be chasing?"
That exact thing happened when I was at a mall in NY. A lady was there with twins (maybe 3 or 4 years old) and one ran straight one way and one ran the other. She panicked completely just frozen looking back and forth. I yelled for her to get one and ran after the other. I’ll bet she never even left the mall before getting herself a couple of leashes. It scared the shit right out of her.
My eldest sister was a bolter- my mother used to have to have a salesperson hold her hands- BOTH OF THEM while she signed papers or anything that required her to let go of my sister. The first time she saw someone with a kid on a leash she had an “OMG, why didn’t I do that??” moment.
I think they’re great. They don’t hurt the child, they help keep them from bolting off somewhere and they make life easier on parents. What’s not to love?
When my little brother was a toddler we had one; it attached at both ends with velcro, and had a cord like a phone cord. Since I was 9 by the time he was that mobile, he often got attached to me. I think it saved all of us a lot of chasing, because he was a pretty fast and energetic kid.
I approve. I know how quickly they can get away from you, and I don’t know why some people disapprove. I expect if they had a toddler to chase they might change their minds.
That’s me and my son in my OP - who is now nine and can go out in public without getting lost.
We did use leashes on occation. Strollers are helpful as well (he could get out - but it would slow him down). Generally speaking, we just didn’t get out much and when we did, we’d usually have as many or more adults as children. But that can create the “pass off problem” (“oh, I thought you had your eye on him? Where did he go?”)
One is easier than two - my kids are not quite 13 months apart - so we pretty much had the twin problem going.
Not true. All you do is let them get lost a few times (following them from a distance to make sure they aren’t really lost). Eventually they realize they’ve lost track of where their parents are and become terrified. Especially if you’ve warned them with stories about kidnappers and child abductors.
They are also a lot less quick than a puppy.
Some time when both parents are there so you can follow both, you let them run off and get lost. See above.
Same thing if they sit down somewhere in a store to sulk and refuse to follow you somewhere. Off you go. Don’t let them bluff you into submission.
I have three children, aged 8, 6 and 4, and I endorse this system.
I’ve babysat a pair of twin toddlers (now three year olds) who were so well behaved even at their most rambunctious neither made a break for it. Going to the mall was never a problem and I wouldn’t consider for a second leashing those kids.
But Jeebus, I was in a food court for a sec and a woman was in the process of switching her tiny toddler (must’ve barely been two, if that) from her stroller to a high chair. She took her hands off the wee’un just long enough to move the highchair straps out of the way. I swear, the kid moved faster than a panicked squirrel! In the time it took for the mom just to stand up the kid was 30 feet away and hoofing it, fast, toward the top of an escalator. I had to do a Superman flying leap to throw my body in front of the top of the escalator. I’m sure bystanders thought I was trying to tackle the kid. At least two other adults had tried to grab her on the way, but by the time you’d bend at the waist to snag her, she was out of reach.
That kid has a future as an Olympic track star, and totally needed some kind of leash until she was old enough to stick with mom of dad!
My parents used these on my sister and myself.
My parents took us everywhere - we were never in the house but we were both bolters (we prefer spirited and independent 
). It gave us a lot of exercise and made us more portable.
I will be doing this with mine
Good job, Supes!
I suspect this kid needs more unrestrained time, not less. Clearly she’s got a lot of energy (and the talent and desire to run), but has been strapped in a stroller, then a high chair, then was about to go back into the stroller.
How about this: WALK around the mall holding her hand. Only put her in the stroller when she’s tired and perhaps about to nap. Yes, you’ll be walking slower, but your child will not be a buzzstorm of energy and boredom, and will get exercise, and also be reinforcing a parent/child bond.
Were you pushed around like luggage 80+% of the time, only to be unloaded in a mat-filled play area or on a carpeted floor in your own house? I sure wasn’t. But it seems like a lot of kids these days are. I fondly remember holding my Mom or Dad’s hand as a kid, my Dad was always squeezing my hand when he saw something he thought I’d find interesting, and I find myself doing this with my kids.
That was probably when I was having a guiltfest over getting a leash for my kid. I got the puppy harness, and WhyBaby calls it her “puppy backpack”. It’s great - she ASKS to wear it, and when we’re in the store, I tell her the PUPPY needs to be on a leash, because of course puppies have to be on leashes. Since the puppy is on her back, she’s secure but doesn’t feel leashed.
She thinks it’s *far *more fun than the shopping cart.
This is the problem my mom had with me and my sister. We’re 14 months apart and were always full of energy. She leashed us (I din’t think there was such a thing then), but she did have to plan very carefully about where she was going.
For example, she would take us to the one grocery store with the neat stripes on the floor (it was the 70s) because when we did take off, we’d just start playing on the stripes. And the store was one big level (no escalators, stairs or elevators) with limited exits and, she said, great sightlines of those exits. Even if we took off, she’d find us eventually. The mall where my mom took us to go grocery shopping had great buffer zones. Running at full tilt we just never got far. If we took off, it was inconvenient but not worthy of panic.
Nowawdays you have stores like Wal-Mart with multiple levels and those “moveators”, that move shopping carts from one level to the next. Merchandise now goes almost all the way to the doors and the doors empty out onto the street or a busy parking area, so a stealthy kid can be out of sight until they’re out the doors or falling down the escalators. You can lose a kid much more throughly now.
She did pretty much strap at least one of us into the shopping cart though.
I’ve got mixed feelings.
A leash (or tether as I believe some people call them) is not a substitute for proper attention, merely a tool to help the parent. And if it’s being used in that manner, I’ve got no problems with it.
But I’ve also seen people who take the view that since Precious can’t escape there’s no need to pay attention to what the little monster is doing. At which point they can become a hazard.
That particular little kid looked like she’d just learned how to walk. She was really, really tiny. That’s why is was so hard for the legions of bystanders to catch her. To me she looked too small to be of walking age. She didn’t look like the kind of kid you could walk around with just yet.
As I mentioned in my last post, we were mostly able to roam relatively freely in the grocery store or Woolco (a Wal-Mart type of place), but the layout was totally different and the “merchandise density” wasn’t as severe. We usually kept whichever parent within sight at all times. I definitely remember freaking out when I thought I was “lost” for all of two seconds.
Worst thing that could happen then? We’d pull all the socks of the shelves. They’re really wasn’t much trouble we could get into, so for the most part our parents let us walk around on our own. These days, with “big box” stores, every nook and cranny is packed with crap up to the ceiling in narrow aisles. Getting lost would be more like getting lost in a forest.
We took off from time to time, but we never went far. Again we were well-behaved, and if we were too rowdy someone was getting stuck in the shopping cart.
ETA:
I had one brief retail job, and that will happen with a stroller too. An inattentive parent let her stroller-bound toddler fill the pockets of a $300 leather coat with ice cream. And we got in shit for letting it happen.
My Eldest was the one who decided the leash was a dog costume. I never did tell him it was a child restraint device. It is in fact still upstairs in the costume box. The former Fido is now 8 years old and leaning strongly to superhero costumes but his brother occasionally has it on.
I bought it to use the year I had two toddlers to take on a transatlantic flight which left out of Atlanta Hartsfield and touched down at Amsterdam Schiphol. I was too frightened by the chances of losing one in either mega airport.
Otherwise, I never used it much because Eldest generally stayed right with me and Youngest stayed with Eldest. (Seriously, Youngest never had separation anxiety from me. He had separation anxiety from his brother). I think kiddie leashes are heavily dependent on the child’s nature and I would not start with one. I think it’s better, where possible, to restrain a child with your voice and your manner and the Hairy Eyeball and so on. But there are children who are proof to these methods and then the leash comes into play.
I don’t expect many of you had to resort to installing a deadbolt lock keyed from the inside and then wearing the key around your neck to keep your kids from opening the door, either. But I did for the same Eldest, who went through five child proof door locks in six days. For some situations, it isn’t safe during the teaching process so you have to resort to physical barriers while they are learning not to do that.
ETA: if you get one, don’t use that one. Too close to the neck, not good if you have a bolter. Get the one that looks like lederhosen, and (important) that fastens in the back.
The saddest man I’d ever seen was at an Arts and Crafts fair last winter at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. He was standing off in the corner with TRIPLETS (all girls around 4 or 5 years old) tethered to him with leashes. They were bouncing off the walls and trying to run everywhere! I felt so sorry for him because you knew Mom was off somewhere shopping and he got stuck with kid patrol at the most kid-unfriendly place in the universe. But in a huge building with tall, free-standing displays and hundreds of strangers pushing and shoving all around, I couldn’t imagine any other way to ensure your kids’ safety. Or you could just hire a babysitter.