Jan49 Sun 23-Jun-13 11:33:10
"We've all done it. Packed a child off on a playdate when we don't know the parents. Let the family next to you at soft play watch your child while you change the other ones nappy, left them in the car when you pay for petrol, lost sight of them at the park while we talk.
No "we" haven't all done it. I've never done any of those things. Playdate, I'd go along the first time."
And how does having accompanied them on one playdate ensure that the adult of the house is not a paedophile murderer biding his time until the second playdate? 
Or the twenty--fifth?
April Jones' murderer was well known to her family, he was the father of a friend of hers, even the most paranoid of MNers would have felt justified in trusting somebody like that.
This other mother didn't intentionally let her daughter out of sight with a stranger; she let her walk to the McDonald's counter inside the same shopping mall- and they suddenly walked out of the door.
And the child was 8, not 2, so only a couple of years younger than the age when most children in this country start to make their own way to and from school.
If you literally never let your 8yo walk up to the shop counter without holding on to her, what do you do with your 10yo? And with your 12yo? Sooner or later you have to let them go and take the risk.