Children's Walking Harnesses / Reins -- Purposes


Figure 1.--Disneyland is one of the favorite vacation destinations for younger children, There are locations in America, France, and Japan. In spite of considerable efforts made to make Disneyland a safe place, it happens it costs lots of money to keep maintaining the highest standards of safety for children visiting the parks. Disneyland since 2000 has incouraged parents to closely supervise the children visuting the parks, especially the younger childrem. The Parks are qwuite large with lsrge numbers of viditors. Pink safety harnesses can now be purchased in the parks. These are the most effective way of keeping younger children from wandering off.

HBC is not sure why these tethers or harnesses are becoming more common. We can not yet quantify or demonstrate that they are becoming more common. We suspect that a factor here might be a grater emphasis on security in the aftermath of the 9-11 bombings. A French Canadian reader writes, "I have come to the conclusion that there is a raising movement for parents to gain greater control of their children. In any culture, you will find large families where parents have control over their children. Traditionally the older children took care of the youngest children. This was especially common in large families. In America and to a lesser degree in Europe, there is a real questioning about security and freedom. You remember the boy named named Bulger who was killed by two young teenagers in UK? Since then, it seems to me that some parents are beginning to leash their children, including children up to 5 years old and sometimes older. Many well-minded persons think, as I did myself for a long time, that this practice is barbaric in considering a child as a dog. But what is the real significance of a harnesss for children? In the today vacuum of real parenting, this device tells to the kid that his space is limited as it was when boys wore dresses or long stockings. Today, boys and girls are dressed like adults but they are still immature people. Every parents know this when they put their kids on a pram or when they leash their children for not having to run after them. The lesson I learnt from your site and from parenting discussion groups is this: everybody is for the virtue and nobody is against freedom. But when you have a child, you need to be in control. To be a pampered child-king is not the best way for a child to mature. The child has to gain more and more freedom in working step by step to get it, not in being given without any struggle. With the advent of synthetic webbing, a kid is unable to escape from his or her harness. The only way to free himself is for the child to learn self control. Then arents "have peace of mind" as they write in a lot of sites promoting this restraining device. Lazy parents? Not so quite sure."






HBC





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Created: 5:37 AM 1/17/2011
Last updated: 5:37 AM 1/17/2011