Dear parents, please pay more attention to your kids.

[anissa834]

Some kids are way too comfortable with strangers and some parents pay little to no attention to them.

Yesterday while I was sitting on a bench, there was a mother and a kid sitting on a bench a bit farther. The other bench where the mom was sitting was facing away from me.

And the kid was running around while her mom was on her phone not paying attention to her surrounding. Then the kid started talking to me. At first she said hi and then she started asking me about my favorite color, who is my favorite footballer ECT. We were having a small talk.

Finally after a couple of minutes, the mother firmly told the little girl to come to her.

Luckily for the girl and the mom, I am not a crazy person. I bet if I told to kid to come with me to my car to get some candy, she would've came with me without a second thought.

Parents please pay more attention to your kids !

I’ve got a DS and took him to a playgroup today. He was happy crawling around and probably going up to other mums and dads (strangers!) to babble at them. I was on my phone at the same time.

I was constantly checking where he was and if he was ok/not annoying anyone/not eating something he shouldn’t etc.

I also wasn’t messing about on TikToks. It was one of the only chances in my day today where my child was happily playing independently, in a safe environment. So I was on my phone:

• Transferring some money to my joint account to pay my mortgage
• Messaging my MIL about some Christmas presents
• Checking a detail on information on an email from DS’s nursery
• Checking my work teams account to arrange a KIT day.

I might have quickly messaged a picture to DH or text a friend back.

We then went home and I played with and contact napped with DS all afternoon.

My point is I looked like I was just messing about on my phone not paying DS any attention but I knew where he was all the time and I was doing admin tasks that are now pretty commonplace to do on the phone.

Until you become a parent it’s easy to judge but difficult to understand how effectively you can multitask!

Are you American? The spelling of some of the words in your original first post seems to suggest you could be. I get the impression Americans are much more anxious about their safety from strangers in general and there may be good reason for them to think like that depending on where they live. I notice they talk about carrying sprays, whistles and guns etc.whereas it wouldn’t occur to most in Europe or Australia/NZ.

In general though kids are statistically more at risk of harm from known and trusted family members / family friends than strangers.

I'm going to start a thread "dear clueless, childless strangers, f*ck off with your judgement". I'm so sick and tired of parents (or mums, let's face it) being vilified for their phone use. News flash: children do not want to be engaged in meaningful conversation or activity every waking second. Mine needs quiet time, downtime to just look at some rocks in the park without me constantly "engaging" him. We do stuff together, we do stuff on our own. He finds a rock he likes, we talk about it, he goes off and looks at other rocks. I go back to updating my online grocery order.

Also, like PPs have said, it's 2024. Our entire lives are on our phones. I need it to tell DH we are on our way home so he can start cooking; to check that suspicious transaction on my credit card; to see if the prescription has finally landed at the pharmacy. I feel like so much of this judgement is from old women who think we still live in the 80s. I'm trying to have a meaningful career, look after a house, a kid, aging parents and parents-in-law and bake for the PTA sale at 11pm while the cat throws up on the sofa - leave me to scroll insta for a bit if I feel like my head is about to explode.

Agree about New Zealand, I was in a backpackers hostel and a lady just left her child with me to pop to the chemist, we had not spoken before this! She was bright and breezy just said 'keep an eye im getting medicine, back in a minute ' and went.... I was momentarily confused but she was all of about ten minutes I was the only female on the sun terrace, she bought us both a lolly for "playing nicely" this was 17 ish years ago though

But here you were talking to a kid yourself . Why didn’t you ignore said kid then, after all ,you think it’s wrong to be in that position . Your sister is doing her kids no favour .

You wouldn't let your kids talk to ANY strangers??!! Jesus. Do you not think that's a bit rude? My DD is shy but I'd be delighted if she talked to random people and she often has (usually old ladies) talking to her and asking her questions - I wouldn't dream of telling her not to talk to them, what a nightmare for that child as they grow up thinking the worst in every single person they don't know.

This, probably should add more but not sure what else to say

This in spades.

Yeah, parents! Damn you relaxing for a second - you deserve to have your kids kidnapped. Put your phones down and dial your anxiety levels up to the max. Don't let those kids move an inch. Tether them to something and if you see them talk to anyone, take a picture of the potential kidnapper and log it with 111.

God forbid we might try and work towards a society in which we interact and look out for each other. It takes a village and all that OP...how sad you should interpret an innocent interaction this way. Just a thought...maybe you should direct your ire at the kidnappers and perverts who have caused you to think this way.

Also think the OP missed the memo that most abusers are people close to the child.

I agree. I had a little girl about 2/3 follow me at a soft play last week who had an obviously soiled nappy. I left her a little while but after half an hour I held her hand and we wandered out to look for her parents, 5 minutes of wandering round the tables and no one approached us so I let go of her hand and she went back in the soft play. I hung around while my dd played and about half an hour later I saw a women looking for her child so I asked if she was looking for said little girl and she said yes. No idea where she was when I was looking for her but I could have taken her and she wouldn’t have noticed for a long time

@anissa834 Society has gone looney. When I was young, children used to play in the streets, and there were no mobile phones so parents didn't know where we were.

Maybe our streets should be used for walking, running, playing, and meeting friends, but instead society chose to surrender them to massive ugly SUVs.

It is very rare for children for children to be abducted by strangers. A news article from 2016 reports that 50 children in the UK are abducted by strangers each year; comparable to the number of people who get hit by lightning.

Child abductions by strangers are thankfully extremely rare here. Most child abductions are by parents.

But isn't this exactly what this mother/aunt did. She had them in her peripheral vision as you specifically go on to state "Finally after a couple of minutes, the mother firmly told the little girl to come to her."

So it seems to me she was indeed fully aware of the interaction and called her back to stop her bothering you.

No they don't.

Complete overreaction. You make out like the Mum was no where to be found.

My children are allowed to talk to people. What a sad world it is where we tell them to not speak to other humans.

This!

In a world where every bloody task is now done via phone, parents are being judged for using them?

Children thrive on being left to their own devices (completely different from being ON their own devices) - Briefly in the park with mum nearby on the bench - absolutely!

I don't think OP knows much about children - she says she has nieces but I doubt she takes care of them much.

Bit rich too then consider herself an expert and come and lecture all of us.

Exactly. Children don’t need 100% non stop hovering over every second of the day . Let them breathe for heavens sake!!

I've noticed Americans usually spell etc. as ECT. Knowing their love of phonetic spelling, maybe they think etcetera is ECTsetra 😄

Why assume the mum was on TikTok or similar?! I use my phone for everything including work. I was on a live chat (text not video) with my GP whilst I was in the school playground waiting for pick up yesterday.
The day before, I was responding to an urgent email from a client.

Says a lot about you that you instantly presume social media

Nonsense

Yes they do.

How do you not know this?

So if a child does get manipulated into going to look for the lost puppy or to get the kitten out of the tree, he or she isn't 'clever'?

What an appallingly stupid slogan, so poorly conceived.

Children need to develop a healthy fear of a lot of potential dangers. Bodies of water, people they don't know sitting in a park, dogs running loose, food on the ground, and more. If they don't appear to be developing any natural shyness or caution, it behoves parents to teach them to hold back - to steer clear of the lovely looking loose dog, the friendly stranger, the packet of chocolate buttons, the garden pond or the swimming pool next door.

"Healthy fear" doesn't mean quaking in their shoes or being frightened all day. It means the ability to recognise potential danger and engage self-preservation instincts. The role of the parent is to teach all this if it doesn't seem to be developing naturally, and supervise.

It's absolutely possible to tell the quality of interaction a child receives in their normal daily life from a brief interaction with a stranger, whether you want to believe it or not.

This is how predators identify their prey after all.

There are a lot of women posting here who need to wise up.