Frustrated with Friend's choice

natysr

New member
I posted before that my friend had told me that she put her 3 1/2 year old son in a booster seat because his carseat (which I suspect may be expired) gave him a bruise on his back.

Her son is 6 months older than my son.

Well, they came over this past weekend to visit and I saw the booster in use for the first time on him. :eek:

My son is very tiny. 18th percentile height and well under 3rd percentile for weight.

Her son is not much taller at all. The boys stood back to back, and her son was maybe 1 inch taller than my son, so he is about 37 inches. Her son is about 5 pounds heavier than my son (he's just under 30 pounds).

Well she said that she "made it so that the shoulder belt fit him well". So when they were leaving, we followed them out to the car to say our goodbyes. She has him in a high back turbo booster. He is way too tiny for that turbo booster. She drives a 2007 Sienna. He was in the driver's side captain's chair, and the captain's chair was reclined a good 45 degrees! She reclined the seat so that it appears that the shoulder belt is not too high. I was just in shock. I tried to open the conversation about car safety by talking about a current bill in the state assembly to change booster law in CA from 6 yrs to 8 yrs. I was hoping the conversation would lead into other area's of car safety and I could address the issue of her son being boostered too early. She totally cut me off and didn't even want to hear it and started talking about how it is the car manufacturer's fault that seatbelts do not fit kids and how THEY should have to change seatbelts so that they are adjustable to fit kids blah blah blah.

She also mentioned that when they were on their road trip, they left the high back portion of her 5 year old's turbo booster in one of the hotel rooms because the 5 year old didn't want it anymore!

I guess I'm just surprised and sad about this. She is the one that taught me where a chest clip is supposed to lie on an infant when her daughter was a baby...years before I was even pregnant.

Uhg. Why is it soo much harder to talk to friends and family about then than strangers?
 
ADS

all together ooky

New member
Sounds like she knows it's not a good solution but doesn't want to admit her choice wasn't a good one. :(

Hopefully you got her thinking about it at least.
 

Judi

CPST/Firefighter
So she would rather blame the car makers than do the right thing. Yeah, they should lower the shoulder belt, but they didn't, so deal with it! Ug! People get to me!
 

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