Your Child: To Leash or Not to Leash

Woof!

Your child doesn't sound like a dog, why treat them like one?

Misguided parents strap leashes on their kids as a safety measure. Really? A leash for your child?

A child leash is a strap that is attached around a child’s wrist or a harness on the chest to stop the youngster from running away. Here's what's wrong with them.

Child safety is a huge and complex issue, and maybe in some situations child leashes are in fact useful. However, those situations do not include morning walks around the park or ordinary trips to the grocery store.

When might they be used?

It’s Black Friday and you absolutely must do some last-minute shopping, but you can’t find a babysitter in time to take care of your little one(s)! Using a stroller is an option, but in a packed store it would be too ungainly...

Possibly you are walking through downtown NYC with your family, whizzing cars, busy sidewalks, and not enough hands to hold onto everyone…

Hectic events and hazardous locations can be extremely dangerous for young kids. Children have a naive sense of safety, and their protection is every parent’s primary concern.

Maybe these difficult situations where it is extremely hard to find other means to ensure safety do excuse the use of a leash.

But use with care--for the child leash is not about authority or stopping the growth of responsibility and the joy of freedom that is so important to every child.

What are the alternatives?

You have an energetic, curious little one with no sense and who can’t wait to run off the instant you turn around. Using a leash is your only option to keep them safe, right?

Wrong!

Surely you have other creative solutions.

Here are a few suggestions…

When all is said and done, “To leash or not to leash, that is the question”!