Totally and utterly agree with you there There are some appallingly behaved kids around in today's society.

A while back I was in the vets, there was this woman in there with her dog and her kid (not sure whether it was a boy or girl), maybe 3 years old (with a dummy ). Said kid was wandering up to everyone's pets and staring at them, trying to pat them, poke them etc. Mother just sat there blissfully unaware of her little darling causing chaos, even when a lady wearing dark glasses and accompanied by a working guide dog was escorted out of the consulting rooms, the VN said quite loudly 'wait a moment, there is a small child sat on the floor just in front of you'. Does the pathetic excuse for a mother try and move her child? No, she just sits there and ignores the situation. Child also just sits in the middle of the floor and starts trying to poke the guide dog

The freaky child then approaches us, luckily for it, we were there with the hens and not Max It started trying to talk to us although I could barely understand a word it was saying because of the dummy It sat in front of the hens carrier and just watched them. Fair enough I thought. It then went to put it's finger into the carrier. 'Don't do that' I said 'Bertie might think your finger is a big fat worm and peck it'. 'Bertie wouldn't do that' says the kid and then reaches it's hand up to the catch to undo the carrier . I lean forward and stare at the freaky kid 'Bertie might not peck you, but I might'. The kid stares at me, looking unsure, I stare back at it. Freaky kid backs away and goes off to harass someone else. Probably it was the first point in it's life that someone had ever challenged it's behaviour.

Not all children are sweetness and light and obedient.

Some can be a right pain in the @rse, however much you love them.

Well given that many a parent in todays society cant disipline their children full stop , I have no problem with a parent who makes a threat , but they must follow it through.

Telling a child a police man will take away those who are bad/naughty is not an empty threat, becuase after all it is their job..... funny though , its supring how children can grow up to realise that the police should be respected and along with dealing with the naughty in society, they are also there to go to for help..

As for it being an empty threat, I remeber a cousin of mine (about 9yrs old) was marched up to the bobby on the beat by his mother... becuase he had done something wrong..cant remember what, to long ago... mother told police officer, to give him a warning, he did and my cousin never uttered a word.. it was a lesson learnt for said cousin,

I never needed empty threats to handle children, the people that use them have children who KNOW their parents are NOT going to leave them at the supermarket, NOT going to let a dog bite them, NOT going to allow a policeman to take them away from their family just because the parents are too feeble to provide consequences themselves.

It is quite simple, you do x this is what happens, it happened and thus I did not get a recurrence.

Children appreciate and deserve to be treated with the same respect and fairness we expect for ourselves.

Children learn what they live, saying things like "the policeman will take you away" is just plain nasty and of course untrue!

Amazing how those who believe in positive reinforcement for dogs do not think it applies to children!

It is not about being politically correct either or being permissive, it is about the person RESPONSIBLE being RESPONSIBLE for outcomes.

Does making empty threats to my dog class as being a bad dog owner?

Depends on what you threaten them with

I've never said that to any of my kids & I've got 4...I have however told them that when the ice-cream man plays his music then he has none left