Do you leash your kid?

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  • MelsAuntie
    MelsAuntie Posts: 2,833 Member
    I can understand why some people use them - they are just trying to keep their kids safe - but as a dog trainer, I prefer to train for off-leash good behaviour! I have a post about how to teach your kid to walk off-leash if you folks want to share it with your leash-using acquiantanes :-)

    http://howtotrainyourtoddler.com/2013/11/01/walking-off-leash/

    :mad: Dogs + kids are DIFFERENT totally. Don't compare training a dog to training a child EVER :explode:

    Way different.....dogs are much more willing to please. :)
  • sizzle74
    sizzle74 Posts: 858 Member
    I never had to, but if my kid was a maniac I would to keep him safe. One of my ex boyfriends jumped in the monkey exhibit at the zoo when he was a kid. He definitely should have been on a leash.
  • jjimmy61
    jjimmy61 Posts: 1 Member
    As a child my mother put a harness on me everytime we went walking. She let my sister hold it. Honestly I felt like a dog on a leash. Being pulled back and being controlled where to go. I understand why parents do it for safety reasons, but my experience was not a good one. So if I had a child I don't think I would do that to them.
  • ReenieHJ
    ReenieHJ Posts: 9,724 Member
    Old topic but I was reminded back to when I cared for children in my home. They sold really cute little backpacks with "leashes"(for lack of a better term) and I asked the mom if it'd be okay to buy 1 to use for 1 of her dds. She was at that age where words didn't penetrate her adorable little ears, I already was using a double stroller and carrying the baby in a front pack, along with our 2 dogs, just to the back yard. If anyone felt the need to judge me for that, too bad for them. She was a defiant runner and unless I was an octopus, it wasn't safe to expect her to stay with us. I always used to have those feelings of 'leashes are for dogs not kids' but then one day I was at the mall, in the parking lot, with my youngest dd sitting buckled into the shopping cart and my very independent precocious 3 yo wriggled her hand out of mine and took off running. Scared me $hitle$$. So after that, my judgmental attitude changed. Better healthy children than a heart breaking loss. :(

    JMO :)
  • Jruzer
    Jruzer Posts: 3,501 Member
    Acknowledging this is an old topic.

    I find leashes distasteful normally, but we did leash our oldest (who is now 23!) once when he was a toddler. We got invited to an oceanside picnic that was very close to some cliffs, and our son was very active and could easily outrun us over a short distance. We weren't going to hold his hand for the hours we were there, so we leashed him up so he wouldn't fall to his death.

    This is the same child who twice jumped into swimming pools without knowing how to swim, resulting in me diving in twice after him. He has given me a few gray hairs, to be sure.
  • NVintage
    NVintage Posts: 1,463 Member
    Wow, just realized some of these kids who were leashed are grown now! I worked at Olan Mills when those little backpacks with leashes were sort of popular, and abhorred them completely!!! Luckily I don't see them around much any more. I went totally Montessori on my kid, putting little chairs all around the house and everything where she could reach it. So far very happy with the results.. It's our job to make sure that they're confident and able to care for themselves when we're no longer able to! It's not easy for them to do that if they're on a leash all the time figuratively and literally, haha
  • goal06082021
    goal06082021 Posts: 2,130 Member
    I was a runner as a wee lass. My parents put a leash on me as a child exactly once. I figured out how to unclasp it almost immediately. Since that clearly wasn't going to work, and unsure of what else to do about me, my mom went for the nuclear option: stage a kidnapping.

    My mom is one of those people who can't go anywhere without running into someone she knows. So, one day in the grocery store, while I was wandering off and running up and down the aisles, she ran into a friend and asked them for a favor: go snatch my *kitten* up and bring me back to her for the tongue-lashing of a lifetime. It worked. For sixteen years. I didn't get over my anxiety about being Away From Mom In Public until I went off to college.

    That said I personally have no compunctions about restraining children for safety in public. I think parents should do what they need to do to get everyone home in one piece - they'll get side-eye for leashing Little Timmy in the grocery-store parking lot, but they'll also get side-eye if Little Timmy dives under my front wheel, and one of those situations doesn't end in tragedy, so. I also personally have no children or plans to change that, so make of that what you will.

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