Is it a safety concern to have child's full name on book bag?

[DinoNuggetsRUs]

I'm usually really careful surrounding these things, never posted my children on social media and their faces have never been on the internet.

I've made my son an iron on patch for his book bag for school with his full name on. He's 3, so is dropped off and collected from school by me every day.

I've posted about durability of the vinyl I used for the patch on a Facebook group and a couple of people have pointed out that it's a safety concern having his full name on there.

I'm usually really careful about things like this, and if he was walking home from school on his own I'd wholeheartedly agree, but is it a safety issue do you think? I'm genuinely asking because I'm wondering whether I've made an oversight and need to buy him a new book bag!

We are awful in the uk for over exaggerating the risk from strangers whilst underestimating the risk from family members,friends and other “ trusted” adults. There was a thread recently about whether year 6 students could be trusted to walk home from home alone. Do they have huge incidences of child abduction in the eu where kids regularly walk alone from the age of 5 or 6?

Great benefit for the teachers and you vs a tiny risk. Our school does writes the kids names on their book bags as a policy.

Surely you used your child's name when outside? ''Emily, stop running by the road!'' so it would make little difference if it also said ''Emily'' on her bag.

I never put their first names on the outside of things because it felt like bad folks could use that to create false familiarity. Eg hi Dave, your mum asked me to pick you up is a lot more trustworthy than hi Vanderspeigle. I am probably over thinking it though!

I never had my kids first name never mind full name on any of their clothes, bags, hairbands etc and if they received anything like that I wouldn’t let them wear it outside

So you never labelled any of your kids uniform?!

Not in the outside, no. I label kids uniforms on the labels!

To give an example. A few years ago my kids school had a major refit while the kids were still there, they weren’t moved to another building and the school wasn’t closed while the work was ongoing. Parents couldn’t go into the playground at pick up to wait, kids were coming out to us on the street. But it was a busy road and a narrow pavement so the only way to get in front of the building for pickup was to arrive half an hour early so it wasn’t unusual for me to be halfway down the street waiting for my kids. My kids were old enough to be released without being handed over to a parent so anyone could have seen a name on a bag and said hey, Emily (not really my kids name), your mums running late and asked me to pick you up’ and had her down the street one way while I’m waiting down the other.

I admit, it’s unlikely but like I said, names on the outside of clothing etc it was my hardline and I’m sure plenty of you have hard lines that I wouldn’t think twice about.

There’s no need for every person my kid walks past to know their name.

@icebearforpresident that’s a false equivalence…a child who is old enough to be released from school should already be fully educated about safety issues , whether that’s that they never go with anyone except you, whether they go back to school to seek help from a teacher if you don’t arrive, whether you use a password known to you and the child …by your reasoning, anyone could say hello, your mum has asked me to pick you up…why do you think having a name would make that any more or less likely?

Yes but we are talking about a three year old who is years away from being released without an adult. Not older children.

It's fine, the name is to identify it in school. He'll never be walking alone outside of school, hes 3!