What do people think of those 'leads' that are put on children?

yeah they don't look great, but when our son begins walking i will use one when we are out. You can have a well behaved child that will still try to wander off- u need to remember they're at an age everything is new.There will be many sights 7 sounds at the shops a child will be distracted by.it only takes the parent/guardian to look away for just a second........

"Leads" never really appealed to me, but now that I have a child I can understand the reasoning behind their creation and their use. Nevertheless, I don't use one on my little girl. She is a pretty well behaved child so I don't feel the need to tie her to me in order to keep tabs on her. I think it's a violation of her freedom. And, when we cross the street I just hold her hand or put her in my arms. She's only two and she already knows to look both ways for cars before we cross the street.

I used to think like you did until I had children of my own. It all depends on the child, I guess. My younger son has a mind of his own and takes off running whenever he wants. He is not shy at all and will walk right up to strangers, sometimes even grabbing their hands! Right now he is content with holding my older sons hand when we are out in public but if he gets to the point where he wont do that anymore then I will consider getting one of those "leads". It's for his own safety.

I used to think like you did until I had children of my own. It all depends on the child, I guess. My younger son has a mind of his own and takes off running whenever he wants. He is not shy at all and will walk right up to strangers, sometimes even grabbing their hands! Right now he is content with holding my older sons hand when we are out in public but if he gets to the point where he wont do that anymore then I will consider getting one of those "leads". It's for his own safety.

I personally love these things. I dont use mine very often, I live in a small town. But when we go out of town or on vacation I take my lead with me. It lets my kids feel like they have some independance, and I know that they are just a few feet away. My kids can be well behaved at times, but like most children they have their moments when they want to run away from you. It is definatley hard when you have more than one child. I have 3, ages 7, 3 and 2. It is really hard to make sure they are all where they need to be. And with all the things you hear about on tv and in the newspaper, you can NEVER be too careful. Its easy to look away for one second and your child be gone.

I do not think there is anything wrong with them at all, if you are in a big crowd of people, there is less of a chance that someone could grab your child and kidnap them, or your child getting lose from your hand and you getting in a panic cause you can't see them. and when you go to cross a street your child cannot run out into it accidently. There are a lot of benefits to the leash, it is ment to halp your child.

There were times when my kids were little that I wished I had some. I have found that the people that object to them the most either don't have children of their own, had one well behaved child or never had more then one small child at a time. It is easy to say "if you were being a good parent then your child wouldn't be running lose" but in reality it isn't always that simple. I had 3 kids under 3 at one time. So at one point in their lives they were all toddlers. All independent toddlers that wanted to walk. I only have 2 hands and even with the smallest in the stroller it was hard to wrangle them all. Luckily they were pretty well behaved but there were times they got away and almost ran into a street. I remember the winter that I realized coats with hoods were a Godsend. I would just grab onto everyone's hoods to keep them near me. They thought it was funny that they were being walked like dogs. They probably would have though leashes were just as funny. I remember thinking those things were awful before I had kids. I said I would never do that to my kids. Then I had them and realized that their safety is more important then my perception or anybody else's of those leashes.