Hey everyone! Got a question.. I just got a new house and I noticed that there is a lock on the outside of the childrens bedroom (not a normal keyhole but a lock thingie way on the top right of the door with a little bar that slides into the wall to lock it). The lock was kinda loose, it looked like someone tried to force it open from the inside. I was kinda startled by this, got goosebumps. It just seems wrong to need that much force.. locking your kid up. I have no idea who the previous owners were but I guess it was a teenage dauhgter (probably age 14?) since there was some mail from a school still in the letterbox. Needless to say we got rid of that lock immediatelly.. Anywho.. what are your thoughts on it?
I could not imagine locking a child in as I think it would cause such fear in a child. Mine do not even care to have their doors closed, even during a time out in their room I do not make them close their doors. I did put slide bolts on the workshop door when they were little as there was machinery in there that could of hurt them badly. I also for a period of about a month would use them on my outside doors as my son when he was about 3 became an escape artist and would just go out the door. With the way my house is designed I could not hear the door opening if I was not at the front of the house...my kitchen, family room and study are at the back and that is where we tend to live. Thankfully it was a short lived period.
Ok.. glad I'm not the only one freaking out over this I think that house needs some serious cleansing/smudging before I'm going to live there.. poor kid. And by the way.. I totally understand why you want to lock your kid OUT of certain places (like the garden or a workplace).. it just feels so wrong to use their bedroom as some kind of confinement you know?
my mom had to put my lock on the outside cus if she gave me time out i wold come right back out, i don't think it damaged me at all. I wold put the lock on the outside of jimis room so he cant lock his self in........... but not to lock him in
I personally wouldn't lock my children in their room. Though my little ones are still quite young yet, I can't imagine doing that at any age. I would think that the child, if being punished, would be able to stay put in their room without using such drastic measures, and if not, well, then something is not right somewhere. It seems cruel to me. JHMO Peace.
i would DEFINATELY smudge the place. There's a hole in the wall in my son's room where the previous owner (who apparently also had two small children) obviously put his fist though. Still creeps me out.
The hole in the wall would have me freaked but the lock on the door wouldn't. When my lil' boys were 2 & 3 I had locks on the outside of the door. We have a steep wooden staircase. It had a gate at the top of it when they were younger but at night I wanted to double secure the scene. The other time I would use the locks is if I was home alone with them and I had to take a shower. I couldn't leave them wondering the house alone so I would put them in their room for play time, secure the scene, and then when I was done I would unlock the door. My boys are now 4 & 6. We took the locks off the doors over a year ago.
That makes perfectly sense.. but again.. it's used for safekeeping.. not for punishment. I do the same with my rabbit (don't have any kids yet).. when I'm not around I lock him in his cage so he can do something stupid and not have me there to immediately fix it for him.. hehe.. but when I'm home he roams the territory freely The point is that I don't know what has been going on there, plus that the daughter (according to the mail) must be well in her teenage years. The whole from the first wouldn't do much for me.. I know a lot of guys who have kinda emotional problems and instead of crying they hurt themselves by punching the walls. I also know some martial arts people who are so well trained that they can punch wholes in walls without hurting at all.. so.. I dunno.. because I know people like that and they are my friends I wouldn't be freaked by it.. although it's the same story.. you don't know for sure what happened!
My parents rigged a bell outside of my door from when I was old enough to walk until I moved into this out when I was in 2nd grade because I had a really bad sleepwalking problem. When I was about 4 I walked into the room where my parents were, squatted over their record collection, and peed all over it and my parents wouldn't wake me up because they didn't want me to go into shock. All those records ruined.... I also sleptwalked outside the house a few times and would be asleep on the front porch or yard when my parents found me the next morning. The bell was simply to tip my parents off so they could make sure I didn't get hurt. Luckily they didn't lock me in. Now I just lock my parents OUT of my room. I like my alone time.
*cough cough* ahem! SCARECROW DID YOU HEAR about the man who locked his daughter in the basement for 12 years
LOL.. that's priceless! I used to sleepwalk a lot too.. mostly toilet-related walking. Sometimes I did a detour resulting in not getting to the toilet in time.. one time I ended up peeing down the stairs.. yuck.. hehe Another time I just walked into the kitchen, waved at me parents (I was about 4 or 5) and opened up the fridge.. my mom asked me what I was doing and I replied very calmly: "I'm going to pee...".. Kids are weird
I wouldn't lock a child in their bedroom either but I have closed the door for a time out. One of my best freind's kids have locks on the outside of their doors when they get a certain age, usually teenagers. The teens used the locks to keep out the younger siblings when they were out of the house but never to lock someone in. The child had the key. Maybe that is what the lock was for. All the locks in my house get loose one time or another because I am a freak at making sure they are closed and locked. So it is my fault.
AWFUL! I can't imagine. No, I can. Go to Babycenter.com they have people regularly talking about locking kids into room for punishment. In most states, this is considered a form of abuse. If CPS sees a lock on the OUTSIDE of a child's room, your kids can be taken. The same goes for gates, if CPS feels they are being used for punishment and not for safety (even in a safety situation, the parent STILL has the responsibility to take care of the kids. It is not only a fire hazard, but an insidious form of abuse, in many cases. I can't imagine the feeling of powerlessness of being locked into a room. What if you have to go potty? What if there is a fire? What if Child Protective Services takes a stroll over? I've NEVER locked a door against a kid. I have never put a gate in a bedroom doorway. I WATCH my kids, especially when they were little. As for showers, I would take them in the bathroom with me when they were little. My dh's dad was a fireman and a fire cheif. He has taken dead children's bodies out of locked bedrooms. There are NO locks in our bedrooms, not even mine and Bear's. Access is important to children. Yuck. If a child so SO out of control that a parent feels they need to do this, THERAPY is the cure. Not imprisonment.
Totally agree We never had locks on the internal doors, not even the bathroom. So really I can't see the point of them.
Well, I wouldn't freak out about the hole in the wall unless it has palpable bad energy or something...I know I put a couple of holes in the walls in my room when I was a teenager. However, that 'locking your kids in' thing does sound horrible
