4 year old getting pierced ears at Superdrug

Nobody should be pinning a child down, no. But I’m highly sceptical that this even happened in the first place.

@StarlightLady Thanks, yes, I'm coming to the conclusion that there is either a feature of the law which allows things which might otherwise be assault / ABH to be fine provided the parent/guardian is doing it or has consented for it to be done to the child... I think smacking in England may be like this, or that there's an anomaly in how the law is being applied in this type of parent/child incident. There doesn't seem to be much logic to it.

Yes, that's almost exactly my experience l. Had my first ones done with gun in a jewllers, with piercing studs & gun. No issues whatsoever & I don't know of anyone who did. Only problems used to be either some having a nickel allergy & not being able to wear cheap earrings. Thankfully I Hever had that oroblem!, I bought lots of packets of the piercing studs and did my 2nd & 3rds my self just by pushing them straight myvear whilst listening to Duran Duran on my stereo in my bedroom!!

This is what I'm wondering. I remember getting mine done in great detail, though it was 40 years ago, mainly because I had been begging my mum for years. She'd taken to using the excuse that I went swimming too often for them to heal up. I broke my arm just before my 10th birthday which meant swimming was off the table for weeks, so I kind of cornered my mum into it; I think she felt sorry for me being deprived of swimming for so long.

Anyway, I felt no pain at all from the gun, the holes were in exactly the right place and they healed no problem at all. It was done at a high street jeweller. I still have one of my first pair of earrings, the ones shot in with the guns (other sadly lost) - little gold studs with sparkly white zirconias - nothing wrong with the quality of them at all.

What's wrong with the guns? Was always the normal way back in the 80's. Surely they're very quick & it's over very quickly?
As for the age, I totally agree it's too young & should be her choice when she's older.

It should be against the law.

Is this a joke? Can't imagine someone being that vain or thick that they think earrings are necessary lmao

Waiting for WHO to update their latest guidelines to say "Breastfeeding is best, vaccinations save lives. Children should have adequate access to clean drinking water, food and earrings in order to grow and thrive"

The only white British people I've met with babies/toddlers with pierced ears aren't exactly what you'd call glowing examples of excellent parenting 🤣

If ear piercings for children were outlawed (as I believe they should be) then the cheap jewellery companies would jump on the bandwagon pdq and produce a range of children's clip-on earrings and they would become all the rage.

Ok I’ll bite. Why are they ‘necessary’?

Allowing children to be unnecessarily harmed is everyone’s business, babe.

Sorry - parents choice

Like a pp suggested - just buy a doll

I love how some posters are blabbering on about it's being the parents right to do this ...

I can remember being bullied all through primary and secondary school because I never had it done. My mum didn’t agree with piercing a child’s ears. Being picked on was horrible but now I’m so glad that I don’t have holes in my ears. Some people even do it to babies😕

You've heard it all. So listen to what you are hearing.

People who decide that a child’s ears should be pierced against the will of the child are not decent parents.

There is no benefit to child or parents. So let the child choose in her own time. Ear piercing is not wrong, forced ear piercing or ear piercing without consent is.

so people who get their kids ears pierced young are not decent parents?

If the child has to be pinned down for this to happen, then yes, they are not decent parents.

😂 so people who get their kids ears pierced young are not decent parents?

I've heard it all now.

@rzb l think the issue is that many things are not unlawful, because there was no expectation of such things occurring. ln many ways legislation is a catch up process; consideration is also given to any possible disadvantages. For example there have been several abhorrent examples given on this thread which occurred in public. If these happened behind closed doors, would it be worse? NB: l am not necessarily saying it would be worse, merely wondering if it could be.

@Differentstarts Thanks for your response. You'll see at no point had I compared this to 'sexual abuse and rape'.

As for child abuse: assault is, I think, considered a subset of abuse, and if these actions were done to an adult, or an unrelated child rather than one's own child, I doubt this would be lawful. From this perspective, I would consider (under normal English usage, if not legally) the action described by the OP to have been an abuse against a child. The linked instance of pinning a child down and piercing them against their will led to a police investigation, which is rather different from being laughed at and accused of wasting police time, albeit with no charges subsequently being brought, presumably because the law permits this behaviour.

This seems bizarre and inconsistent to me, and I'd still be interested to understand how/why the law is such that what happened to the child in the linked incident was legally just fine. E.g. is it because it's considered that there's some greater good that comes from the child being pierced? With vaccination, which has been mentioned at various points above, the earlier a child gets vaccinated, the earlier they are protected from the thing they are vaccinated from, and the benefit is presumably considered to outweigh the harm that pinning them down to have the vaccination, and the pain associated with the vaccination, would cause. Perhaps similar thinking applies - having pierced earlobes allows the child to benefit from decorating their earlobe for a longer period of time, and this is sufficiently beneficial to outweigh the harm of having to pin them down so that this can be done before they are fully able to understand the benefits of having pierced earlobes and choose for themself to be pierced.

This was 3 years ago and after investigation there was no charges and the case was dropped. Rightly or wrongly it is a parents decision

I can’t go into some shops that do piercing in full view of the shop and see babies and young children screaming. They should not be allowed to hold children down