Tied child

I was in the supermarket today, shopping of course (what else?), when I saw a shopper with a child strapped to her wrist with a tie about 1 metre long. It was secured to the child such that he had no chance of escaping, and as I approached he was sitting on the floor, causing a rumpus, saying that he didn’t want to go any further. His Mum dragged him to his feet and said if he didn’t behave himself he wouldn’t get any sweets. This didn’t seem to make any difference to the lad as I passed by though I did get the impression that he might be showing some small signs of succumbing.

This suggested that the person, who I am going to assume was his parent, was unable to deal with the lad in any other way than physically restraining him. This could have serious implications on the development of the child in not allowing him to stretch the boundaries of acceptable behaviour at an early age. The parent is effectively saying that she can’t cope with him. This is very sad when one considers that the child was born because the parent wanted a baby. I am again assuming that the child was wanted, especially when there are easily available ways of avoiding pregnancy, and if it does happen unexpectedly there are ways of negating the pregnancy as soon as thought possible to be pregnant. If a person continues with the pregnancy, then I think it reasonable to consider that the child is wanted. This may change later on, but in the first instance the baby is wanted!

Therefore, if we can safely assume that the baby is wanted, if planned or not, then it is surely reasonable to consider that the parent would want the child to reach the outside world in a prepared state for adulthood. Again I am thinking that that parent is capable of and is thinking of the future, though it has to be accepted that this may not be a reasonable line of thinking. One of the prerequisites of this is to be able to understand what acceptable behaviour is. In order to understand such a concept a child needs to know what will happen if the behaviour exhibited is not acceptable. There are a number of ways to try to get them to understand. One is by smacking, another is by reasoning, and yet another is by bribing. We’ll look at these separately at a following date, very soon.

Let's go back to this situation of a parent actually tying the child to her. A child needs to be able to develop numerous skills and understandings whilst growing up, and one is obedience because in the worst scenario he could be heading towards a very serious situation where he could be terminally badly injured if he continues to pursue his current course, and that is not something a parent would want to happen. The parent needs to know that the child will respond to their verbal instruction for his own safety, without querying it. Absolute obedience at that instance should be expected. It has to be admitted that such an instruction would also be accompanied by a voice projection that the child would hopefully understand almost without the accompanying words if only because of its horror characteristics, but if the child is brought up in an environment where such voice projection is normal, then the warning could so easily be treated as being just normal and therefore ignored, much to the possible detriment of the child. We’ll touch on the parent child communication scene relationship at a later date.

Supermarkets can be fun places for children if restrained in an acceptable manner. The main criteria is that the parent needs to keep track of where the child is, which can be extremely difficult if allowed to roam, and if going too far afield to know that the child will return if told to do so. One advantage that the parent has is that if brought up in a loving environment the child won’t want to put himself in a situation where he feels lost, and insecure, and if he approaches that point he will try and find his parent to put his mind at rest. If he suddenly sees his parent at long range he is likely to head for them straight away to avoid the ‘lost’ feeling, although just seeing them may be sufficient to allay his fears. Of course, if the child is used to doing what he likes all the time, encouraged or not by his parent, then the ‘lost’ feeling is unlikely to develop and the child may not care if the parent is there or not, and that can be a real problem.

The child has a right to know that the parent cares enough for his safety to avoid him getting unintentionally ‘lost’ or to unknowingly getting into dangerous situations, and for this right to be exercised effectively the child needs to accept discipline so that the parent then knows that the child can be warned in advance of any dangers, and that the child will take heed of the warning. The child has that right.