video game controllerA Florida dad is accused of tying up his 4-year-old daughter so he could play video games.

The toddler told police that she was watching TV when her dad, Heath Howe, decided to take over the tube. He roped her to a chair  in the kitchen and started to play what she called "bad guy" video games.

It gets worse. When the mother came home from the gym with a friend, she walked right past her restrained tot. It was the guest who actually set the little girl free.

The child apparently also told investigators it wasn't the first time she had been tied up. Police said the rope was tight enough to leave marks on her little arms and red spots indicated that she had been bleeding under the skin. Howe was arrested and released two days later after making bail. 

I am afraid to think of how experiences like this shape a fragile, impressionable little mind. Children learn from our behavior. Why do people have kids if they are too selfish and immature to deal with them? Yes, raising a toddler can be frustrating and those inexplicable tantrums can drive the calmest of parents to the edge. But there is no rationale for binding your kid to a chair so that you can play a game -- a GAME! Stories like this are just proof that some people just aren't ready to raise a child.

What do you think is a fitting punishment for something like this?


Image via jack zalium/Flickr