to think there is not a peado on every corner

[racmac]

In car park yesterday and mum is putting money in pay & display - child of about 10 appears and mum says
"i told u to stay in car - cant believe you walked across the car park, a nasty man might have taken you before you got to me"

I mean ffs - she was old enough to walk across a car park, why tell your child that every man is bad

Easywriter; Point taken. Re Monkey Dust - you are either incredibly young or were perhaps far too busy with a young family about 7 years ago!

Series one came out on DVD but you can get other episodes from Youtube

here is some wikipedia information
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_Dust

Here are a couple of extracts with the Paedofinder General

You're spot on Breton with what I was doing 7 years ago.
Thanks, am off to watch the clips.

Oh dear Breton.
When my children are neglected along with the house I will blame you.

I LOVE the Government targets sketch!
Thank you!

Easywriter - you're welcome

YANBU, guys.

Witnessed the other week in a motorway service station:

Child about 5, standing still (not wandering absent-mindedly) about 10ft away from parent who was queueing to pay for something.

Parent (mother in this case) leaps out of queue grabs child by arm and shakes lightly whilst yelling in their face..."Do you want to get taken away by a bad man? Do you want to get taken away from Mummy and never see me again? If you don't want to get taken away from Mummy by a bad man then you stay right next to me all the time"...I was speechless but probably couldn't hide the look on my face.

Also less about being scared of people more about being scared of EVERYTHING, in a public toilet (a relatively nice one near a beach that is locked at night not a skanky one where people go to shoot up), mother says to child on entering...'DON'T touch ANYthing in here, don't touch the doors, don't touch the walls, don't touch the toilet, don't touch the sinks or toilet paper, I hiave some tissues and antibac soap here'... Paranoid or what - I mean I can understand asking kids not to touch the toilet or seat in public toilets but the doors and sinks FFS?

FWIW I don't think this kind of paranoia does anything to keep anyone safe from anyone or anything at all. Asking children to stay away from individual people who are known to be a danger seems to be common sense though.

D

The unfortunate thing about paranoiac parents is that they tend to make other, less neurotic, people start to question their worldview. When my daughters were at primary school a couple, who were fairly neurotic on a wide variety of topics, started a huge to-do about whether or not the gate into the school was locked. After a while, a lot of people who had previously not given the matter a second thought started to worry about it. It only takes one person claiming to care more' and by implication criticising everyone else for not caring enough' and the seeds of dissension are sewn.

The rate of registered sex offenders is, to one significant figure, about 1 in 1000, depending on the area. Of those, the vast majority are guilty of crimes against adults which, although horrific, are a different threat. Of those convicted of offences involving children, the vast majority will be guilty of possession of child pornography, and the evidence that they present a danger to children around them is nuanced, at best.

I got into trouble amongst other parents of our acquaintance for saying, probably in the wrong context, that the best way to protect your child from sexual abuse is to stop your new partner and their family from doing it, as almost everything else is in the noise floor. But that doesn't make it any less true. Attacks by strangers are vanishingly uncommon. A friend of a friend was one of Fred West's victims: it's newsworthy precisely because of its rarity.

I was having dinner with some mums the other night who were saying they would never let their dcs lag even a foot behind them on the pavement in case a paedophile swept them int his car. "It happens all the time," one said and they were all nodding sagely.

Though the irony is these particular mums are actually all members of a posh health club where they sit at the bar and their dcs run riot for hours completely ignored. But what if one of the cleaners there was a paedo ...? What if one of the kitchen staff ...? What if one of the groundsmen ...?

Don't think they'd appreciate me asking that.

THERE so is a paedo everywhere
but even knowing that my kids are out everywhere.

"I was having dinner with some mums the other night who were saying they would never let their dcs lag even a foot behind them on the pavement in case a paedophile swept them int his car. "It happens all the time," one said and they were all nodding sagely."

Assuming that we're talking about young children, as opposed to teenagers and older who will be definition be out on their own (unless people are planning to keep their fourteen year olds on a leash), how many cases are there are of abduction by strangers?

In round numbers there are six million children aged under ten in the UK, so if six children were abducted and killed or seriously assaulted by a stranger each year it would represent a one in a million chance per year. I don't believe it is six per year (they're incredibly newsworthy events, and the Moors Murders are a long time ago), but arguendo let's pretend it is. If you look up rough mortality risks en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort then a one in a million chance of death is equivalent to a few hundred miles in a car or a single medium-length plane journey.

I totally agree tokyonambu

it is madness, if it happened all the time it would have happened to lots of people we know - and happily it doesn't

I like peas, preferably garden ones..

tokyonambu - I wholeheartedly agree. This over-protectiveness by some parents is pernicious because it keeps children in a perpetual state of infantilism. I was a child when the Moors Murders happened. We were told by parents not to talk to strangers, take sweets from strangers, and never go anywhere with strangers - but that was about it. We were assumed to have the common sense to realise there was a reason for this and also to be amenable to obeying our parents' wishes (What a novel idea ). We spent whole days in fields and woods about two miles from where we lived doing the sorts of things kids do.

However, today too many children seem to be mollycoddled to the point where they are never allowed out of parents sight.

I would also add that with the school holidays upon us - too many kids will be cooped up the home or shunted from organised event to organised event by their parents.

After the tragedy of Sarah Payne's abduction and murder a psychologist remarked on the clamp-down by too many parents on children's freedom and warned that this would have unhealthy consequences. She made the point that the rate of such abductions had not changed much in over forty years and stressed that children need to be away from adults where they can test themselves and find things out the hard way and this can only be achieved by parents letting their kids go and just be kids!

I remember when I was a child one of us fell into a bed of stinging nettles whilst in the woods - painful but not fatal! We also dared each other to walk along the edge of a disused railway tunnel - yes one of us could have fallen to their death - but we didn't. We made dams in streams, and found a large natural pond and went skinny-dipping - no fears about Weil's disease or drowning - we just did it.

It was great.

Nowadays too many kids will spend a large proportion of their summer holidays stuck in the house watching television or using their computers. And of course many children will be unsupervised on those computers and viewing highly inappropriate material. However, they will be "safe" from paedophiles!

The only child I know who has been abducted (but escaped) is my MIL: this would have been around 1930. Didn't have any effect on her parenting 30 years later, so I don't think it should have any on mine.

The other problem with this sort of worry is that even if you regard paedophiles as omnipresent, the subset of them that are violent rapists is in turn vanishingly small. Paedophiles largely operate by getting into positions of trust with respect to families, particularly vulnerable families, or by exploiting positions of authority. Neither of these things happen via street kidnappings.

If you regard your child as more at risk from sexual assault than they are from car accidents and boiling water (which, in fact, they aren't), then you should logically be worrying about the people around you who have unsupervised access to your child, not random strangers. But logically, you should be fastening their seat belt, making sure boiling water is kept away from them and locking the drugs cabinet. Everything else is a lower risk than being struck by lightning.

YA sooooo NBU!!!

This attitude drives me mad. I don't believe there is a paedo on every corner. I did a course recently on child protection and most paedos 'groom' children for many months in advance by being friendly, taking an interest in their activities etc. They build up a trusting relationship with the child first. Very, very few children are just snatched by strangers on the street.

This paranoid attitude is ruining childrens' lives and is common in the UK. Interestingly, I recently heard a report about Denmark where this attitude just does not exist. There are many male workers in nurseries there and strangers talk to and touch children and no-one bats an eyelid.

It really frustrates me because I let my children out and give them as much freedom as possible, but all the other children are being molly-coddled so they have no-one to play with!

And you know, if someone really wanted to get a picture of your child, they would even if you were with them. If you take your child to a public paddling pool, how can you be sure there isn't someone hiding in the bushes with a long lens camera? I'm playing devil's advocate here but I mean if you worry about every possible risk you would never leave your house.

BRETON - I speak from personal experience. I'm not hysterical, far from it.

Lots of talk here about convicted sex offenders. Well what percentage of sex offenders are not convicted? Or are not charged? Or are not known?

Just because a statistic doesn't exist doesn't mean the offence isn't being committed. Online child porn is one of the more difficult crimes to track, reveal, charge and convict for.

And further, how many people have never touched another soul, but are building up a library of child porn (clearly these ARE inappropriate images) night after night in the comfort of their own home? How are these people classed? Do you really believe the police know how many people are downloading child porn every day? Believe me they don't but they do know that it is extremely widespread and popular pastime.

Child abusers will go to long lengths to become known to families, befriending them, becoming Scout leaders/teachers for example in order to prey on young people from a position of trust.I think the ride, the game, the manipulation is all part of the thrill for them.

BRETON can you honestly say as a FACT that no men you know download child porn. No of course you don't - how could you possibly know that?

"My Dh was driving home from work one day when the little girl on the street before ours waved at him and he waved back only to have her mother shake her head at him and give him an evil look as if to say how dare you even look at my child.

This left my Dh feeling very upset. Has it really got this bad that men can't even acknowledge a child without being made to feel like a horrible person?
"

Off at a slight tangent here but there was a case recently where a very small child got away from nursery without being noticed and ran off down the street. I believe it ended tragically - child fell in a neighbours pond and drowned, or something like that.

Anyway, it was reported that a man driving a van had seen the child on its own and thought it was a bit odd and had been worried. However, he was scared to stop and do anything at the time because he was by himself and thought people would think he was up to no good.

Very sad.

DD came home and told me her friend that she had gone to play with had been really told off by her mum by running out in the road without looking. So I said, yes, it is dangerous to run into road without looking. "Yes," carried on DD "her mummy said a man could have taken her away and she would never see her mummy again."

!!!!

Now this is a small suburban street with almost no foot traffic and certainly any man hanging around would stick out like, well, like a man in a dirty raincoat hanging around.

I was stunned and said to DD "well, I think it would be more likely she would get hit by a car than a man want to take her away." DD said "yes, I thought it was strange mummy".

I will say though that I am very paranoid about traffic and before we get out of the car I always say to DD "we are in a car park, stay close to muumy as cars come in and out all the time". This is due to once, DD ran off from me when I was unable to walk fast or run and luckily a man who was in a traffic queue got out of his car and stopped her. I thanked him! He was not a pervert, he was worried about a 2 year old running down a road!

It is very sad that non-pervy men feel they can't be helpful to children or even in some cases women, for fear their motives will be misjudged.

Not even a trying to be helpful thing, but it made me incredibly sad on our last skiing holiday, that a very good male single friend of mine, walked the very long way back from the supermarket on his own, DH and I cut across the 'garden' of our apartment block where there was a kids 'snowgarden' play area, and the friend had left the supermarket before us and didn't realise we were right behind. When we got back to the apartment, I said 'why d'ya go the long way?' and he replied that he felt uncomfortable as a lone male walking through the kids area in case people thought he was up to no good. Really sad that people have to feel that way. And that in turn adds to the culture of fear because one lone male becomes so unusual that people assume they are up to no good.

Made me very sad.

D

"And further, how many people have never touched another soul, but are building up a library of child porn"

Which is reprehensible, illegal and quite properly both socially taboo and severely punished. What it isn't, in general, is a risk to random children in the street. Clearly, the world would be a better place if child pornography and the hideous crimes that are carried out in its creation were stopped. But just because a man with a large collection of child pornography walks past your school playground there is no additional risk. It may be unsettling, unpleasant and many other things, but what it isn't is a risk to those children.

Moreover, the definition of child pornography is extremely diffuse. As of today in the UK, sexual images of people under eighteen are classed as child pornography; it was sixteen up until recently, which is why The Sun had to destroy a lot of its pictures of Samantha Fox. A lot of people arrested for possession of child porn are found to have pictures that are not demonstrably of women over eighteen; pornography can be a crime against women, is deeply misogynistic and often the product of coercion and violence, but it is extremely misleading to refer to this as `child' pornography.

In Australia, the definition has been widened further so that pictures of Kate Moss, last seen clocking up her 36th Birthday, may be held to constitute possible child pornography on the grounds that her breasts are not large enough to make her unambiguously adult: women with 32A bras should be careful where they have their holiday pictures printed. boingboing.net/2010/01/28/australian-censor-bo.html.

"Child abusers will go to long lengths to become known to families, befriending them, becoming Scout leaders/teachers for example in order to prey on young people from a position of trust.I think the ride, the game, the manipulation is all part of the thrill for them."

Indeed you are right, this is precisely the behaviour of abusers. Which is why worrying about strangers abducting children in the street is so irrational.

TOKYO - I don't think we know yet if it is a risk on the streets or not. Time will tell. So you believe, that as long as no physical action is taken against a child there is no harm done? Would you want your child to be with someone who although apparently perfectly harmless, is visualising your child being raped by him, just like in the pictures he downloaded last night? For me this as a very big problem and it is damaging though it may not show a bruise. But not one I can do much about. Certainly the children in the pictures/films that are downloaded are harmed . And those children came from somewhere.

And yes it a big problem and sadness that all men are potentially tarnished by the same mucky brush. Which is why men really need to be tackling this head on - like rape, it really is something men as a gender need to engage with, confront and attack.

I'm not buying into hysterical/paranoid parenting and I don't do it myself. But my point is men downloading CHILD porn is prolific, and that is harmful - it's not just a dogey uncle (not in my family!!) uploading these images.

Re the comment about men in dirty raincoats - that again is entirely my point. THEY AREN'T MEN IN DIRTY RAINCOATS. They look like the guy sitting next to you on the bus/tube/train/cafe. ie they don't look like grubby monsters, they look like normal men. Which is why parents really need to have their wits about them.

So I don't agree with the parenting in the OP, but I do think that, just like a London rat, you're never too far away from a child porn fan.

" So you believe, that as long as no physical action is taken against a child there is no harm done? "

No, I clearly don't, which I why I wrote "Clearly, the world would be a better place if child pornography and the hideous crimes that are carried out in its creation were stopped.". I'm not sure how much clearer I can be than "hideous crimes", but perhaps the chaff from the strawman you are constructing is making your eyes water.

"Would you want your child to be with someone who although apparently perfectly harmless, is visualising your child being raped by him, just like in the pictures he downloaded last night?"

For me this as a very big problem and it is damaging though it may not show a bruise."

Damaging to whom? I'd argue that the distortion of relationships between adults and children by the fear of abuse is also harmful, and for every child being somehow harmed by the unacted thoughts in an adult's head, there are tens or hundreds being affected by (for example) the almost complete removal of men from primary education, and the feeling that most adults, male or female, do not offer help to distressed, lost or otherwise threatened children that they are not related to. The damage caused by unacted fantasies is extremely hard to quantify, if indeed it exists at all; the damage caused by the distorted fear of abuse is real and tangible.

Simply assuming that everyone who doesn't share your precise concerns is somehow defending abusers is unhelpful. Child pornography, its production and its market, is a cancer in our society. However, it is not the only problem we face as parents, and the desire to protect against every possible risk is not itself a risk-free operation. If one consequence of a fear of the (small) risk of child abuse is that long-standing activities that rely on the trust volunteers stop happening, that is not something to lightly dismiss.

Protecting children against actual physical harm is very important, although it doesn't trump everything else (as otherwise no-one would ever ride a horse or jump on a trampoline). Protecting children against the possibility that someone may look at them with evil in their heart, although that evil is unacted, comes a long way down the list of priorities.