The last time we had this debate, a few years back, I was very much against leashing your kids. I believe I agrued that it represented a failure to properly parent your children and to some extent I still stand by that...
However, I am willing to temper that somewhat. At the time, I had raised my son, who was an angel. Since then I have had a baby girl who is not so much the angel. She is a wee terror. She had no fear of leaving us and wandering off by herself (whether in curiosity or anger). I now know what it's like to have a wandering child.
That said, I still refused to leash her. It meant I had to pay more attention and do a lot more chasing and steering but that was the price to pay for having a kid.
I can see how some, growing exasperated look for the easier solution. I can truly appreciate how overwhelming it can be. So I will temper my former position by saying that a wrist teather (i.e. an extention of held hands) seems reasonable when you are in a croweded are and run the risk of losing your child to the crowd.
I still can't agree that those body harness leashes are a sound idea.
Further to this, here is a story from yesterday's Toronto Star. Yes the little girl is six and older than most who would be force to wear a leash, but I think it could just as easily have been a younger child. A very sad story to be sure...
LINK
Quote:
6-year-old's death mourned
Girl slips mom's hand before accident
Concerned resident to launch petition
Colleen Prince is haunted by the image of a 6-year-old girl being struck and killed by a van on Saturday afternoon.
The youngster died after letting go of her mother's hand and running into the path of a van on Ellesmere Rd., just east of Victoria Park Ave.
She was dead on arrival at the Hospital For Sick Children. Police said it's unlikely the van driver would be charged.
Police said the excited little girl had told her mother only moments before the accident that she wanted to go to a fast-food restaurant beside Parkway Mall across the street.
Prince was riding in a car with her father and watched helplessly as the girl came loose from her mother's grasp and darted into the street.
"I turned around in my seat and saw the van's rear wheel going over her ... it was like she was tumbling along the road," said Prince, who brought flowers in a slim glass vase to add to a makeshift shrine growing by the curb near Pollard Dr.
They turned around and stopped, but realized there was nothing they could do to help.
Like others who brought flowers and stuffed animals to the scene, Prince didn't know the little girl, whom police have so far refused to identify.
Prince said she just felt compelled to do something.
So did Demetra Aspiotis, 11, and her 8-year-old sister Victoria.
Accompanied by their grandmother, they brought a small bouquet and a stuffed white bunny and knelt by the side of the road.
"I felt sorry for the little girl who died," Demetra said. "It wasn't right for her to run into the street, but I don't think it was all her fault.
"It's sad because the world is so scary," she said. "When cars kill people younger than my sister, that's just really scary.
"She should have held on to her Mommy's hand to be safe," Demetra added. "You should always pay attention to your parents and be aware of the cars around you."
Mary Dimou, 53, called the accident "heartbreaking.
"I am a mother and a grandmother and it really touched my heart," she said. "That's a very young age to die like that.
"I felt for the mother, I felt for the family and I felt for the driver. Kids are very full of energy, that's all it is, and you can't control it.
"It's very much a tragedy."
Dimou said she stopped jaywalking — crossing in the middle of a street away from a pedestrian crossing walk — three years ago after witnessing an elderly man being struck and killed by a car as he attempted to cross farther along Ellesmere.
"The van hit him and . . . it threw him very far," she said.
Prince said she plans to start a petition to get a pedestrian crosswalk near the scene of Saturday's fatal accident.
There is no crosswalk between Victoria Park and Pharmacy Aves. on Ellesmere, which means that people who are heading for Parkway Mall must either walk to one of those crossings or dodge traffic in the middle of the street.
As Prince stood by the sidewalk and talked, two teenaged boys ran across Ellesmere just down the street from where the accident had occurred.
Both narrowly avoided being hit by a car but they were laughing and leaping into the air as the vehicle passed them by.
"Kids have to stop that," she said. "They think they're invincible, but they're not."
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