It's amazing to read all the support for the controller from pro's and supposed pro's. I had presumed as a group they generally would have understood WHY this is a serious judgement error.
HD and others with the management experience knows why it is a serious indication of poor judgement. The fact that no birds fell out of the sky in this occasion is irrelevant.
The issue is that the guy determined on his own the parameters by which it was/is OK for him to operate and perform his sworn duties. NoNoNo. Don't work that way when the duty and responsibility is to protect mult millions$ of hardware, multi millions$ potential liabilties in event of bent and broken and burning stuff, and the general well being of hundreds of PAYING passengers. The PAYING passengers presume when buying your services that you will maintain your sworn commitment to your job duty. Laxness is for giving your kid the stick in your sport plane and if you both auger in...oh well you went together dong what you love.
The FAA is obligated to enforce because it IS an enforcement agency...get it? A law enforcement agency. The F-up here is really an issue of insubordination, and one of no established limitations and directives for what is OK and what is not if it is allowed that a controller and his local supervisor are given leeway to bring 10yo's into the tower at their discretion. If that is OK, then where is the limit line? There are thousands of controllers. How then will YOU who feel this a nanny-state overcontrol problem KNOW that one of those controllers will not evr give theier kid vector instructions to relay, get up for a cup of coffe, kid relays an error, pilot laughs, turns for 025 instead of 250 and ...oops. 400die, 2 big birds down, a billion$ oopsy. Keep it to your small venue for having fun.
On the other hand, why didn't the guy ask to calnder a 'bring our kid to work' day. That would be great. We all love that. Uhg.