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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Children going off with strangers

76 replies

PrincessFlirtyPants · 04/09/2013 12:37

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2410930/Chilling-experiment-shows-children-happy-walk-stranger-park--took-just-90-seconds-persuade-them.html

AIBU to be quite scared at the idea it would be this easy?! One girl was 11... Sad

OP posts:
Fairylea · 04/09/2013 14:36

I think the problem is children always think of some huge sinister stranger in a black leather coat or whatever coming up and bundling them into a car. They don't imagine it would be someone asking them to look for a puppy / a child or even a woman. It just never occurs to them, no matter how much you drum it into them.

Also as others have said it's often people they know.. think April Jones... and the soham murders, well Ian Huntley was a care taker.

I am only just now beginning to let my dd out to the park right next door to us and she is 11 this year. I have told her she is not to go into anyones house or walk off with anyone, even if she knows them without asking me first.

I don't think children of 4/5/6/7 have the mental reasoning to be able to look after themselves properly playing out alone.

pigletmania · 04/09/2013 14:39

Silver not your ds personally but if they see someone acting inappropriately f course it's up to the public to report

SilverApples · 04/09/2013 14:40

I know piglet Smile
I'm just betting that if I sent him and his NT cousin of a similar age on a collecting expedition, the cousin would win hands down.
He's posh, good-looking and very personable. He'd be a perfect child-catcher

SilverApples · 04/09/2013 14:41

By inappropriately, I mean staring at stuff, talking to himself and looking very serious with little expression. When he's in a real Aspie phase, he walks around in his own bubble, oblivious.

Lilka · 04/09/2013 14:42

I'm not surprised at all, in fact I'm pretty there have been multiple similar experiments in the past, and the majority of children will always go off with a kind stranger, even if their parents and schools have told them repeatedly not to do it. Childdren don't often have the mental ability to think it through, and to apply what their parents said to EVERY different situation that could happen, they are also apt to be persuaded by skilled adults to do things they know they shouldn't, or to have too much respect for 'adult authority' to refuse to go etc etc

Fairylea · 04/09/2013 14:43

As a side note I remember when I was about 7 and playing in the park with a friend we had my neighbour from 2 doors away approach us and ask us if we wanted to go back with him and watch a film with him. We were quite street savvy (south London) and refused and we returned to my house. Maybe he was being genuine but something about it just seemed creepy - why would a grown man want two 7 year olds to come home with him and watch a film?

I dread to think that some dc would have just gone with him thinking they knew him well because he was a neighbour.

FoundAChopinLizt · 04/09/2013 14:47

I play a game with mine, pretending to be a stranger

'quick, come with me, your mum's really sick and your dad sent me to pick up to see her in hospital'

'I've lost my dog, it's a lab puppy, have you seen it? Can you help me look for it? She's called Maisie..'

And so on,

They have to say no, no matter how amazing the story is....

I do let mine go to the park, library and go round our small town on their own, except the youngest age 8, who can go with any of the others ages 11, 13,15. I don't think it's neglect, but healthy independence.

rootypig · 04/09/2013 14:58

I'm with nokidshere, this kind of thing vastly misrepresents the risks.

It's hard to find good clear statistics on child abduction, because the same term is used or parents who unlawfully remove their children. But the fact is, abductions are often by known and trusted people. What is more, other harms (the risk of which far outstrips abduction, in terms of incidence) are even more likely to happen under your nose, often within families. You have to educate your kids not to go with anyone, basically, unless you know first. My mum always used to say if the person really meant well, they wouldn't mind you not going with them. That struck a chord with me as a child.

Dahlen · 04/09/2013 15:08

Teaching your children not to go off with strangers is all well and good, but it's important to keep it in perspective.

Child abduction by strangers is awful, but it is rare. It is no more common now than it has ever been (although media reporting makes it appear so). Truth is, your children are at far more risk at their local football club or with their families. The vast majority of abuse is carried out by people well known to the child, often someone who has been granted admission to the inner circle of that child's life.

Raising a generation of children who are too scared to even talk to strangers will create a society characterised by its lack of friendliness and an unwillingness to get involved. What it won't do is reduce the number of children who get abducted by strangers, because such abusers will always be able to find a child who is vulnerable in some way.

I teach my children about the importance of not giving away information that is too personal and never going anywhere with someone else unless I have given them specific instructions to do so in person or on the phone. (Like all children they came up with "but what if?" scenarios, which we've worked through those.) However, I've also raised them to think that it is friendly to smile and say hello to strangers or people you see about but don't really chat to, and it's fine to spark up a conversation just as long as you are careful about what you say.

Dahlen · 04/09/2013 15:09

All that said, any child who is young enough to not be able to display reliable enough ability not to go off with someone should not be out unsupervised anyway. If you have to take a phonecall, you can do it within sight.

SilverApples · 04/09/2013 15:09

So run a MN test and see what the results are.
Choose one of your younger children Chopin, and get someone they don't know but who looks 'normal' to try one of your scenarios out. See what happens.
Perhaps every poster with a child between 7 and 14 ought to try it out and see if the teaching is effective in a RL scenario.

Bramshott · 04/09/2013 15:09

I'm not sure it's EVER possible to stop this sort of thing though is it? I mean we are all, adults as well as children, hard-wired to think the best of people, and in many ways that's a good thing.

FoundAChopinLizt · 04/09/2013 15:13

Good idea, SilverApples.

girlylala0807 · 04/09/2013 15:18

I work in a museum and if we find a child who is lost we stay put with them and reassure them their parents/carers will be brought to them. I am surprised how many of them will just walk away with any adult who finds them though. Children are so trusting of people.

GingerBlackAndOriental · 04/09/2013 15:26

LaGuardia
Abducted children are not wrestled from the arms of loving, caring parents. They are generally running wild around the neighbourhood, or being neglected.

Seriously? This is what you think? Hmm

Big huge blinkers on your eyes.

zatyaballerina · 04/09/2013 15:26

I think it highlights how important it is for children to have it drilled into them never to go off with a stranger or for that matter a familiar face who is telling them to come with them if their parents have not told them that person would be picking them up and how to respond when that happens. Until a child gets that they're too vulnerable to be left out of sight.

pigletmania · 04/09/2013 16:38

That would not be inappropriate silver, I talk to myself in public Blush. By inappropriate I mean trying to talk to children, exposing oneself you get the gist

KissMeHardy · 04/09/2013 16:44

My son and I had a password system. He was not to go with ANYONE if I wasn't there and the person didn't know the password. School had the password on their records.

SilverApples · 04/09/2013 17:12

Piglet, you used the word inappropriately. [smile[
I said 'as the parent of a man who can present as somewhat strange on occasion'

But to mundanes, behaviour can seem threatening, even if it doesn't involve them. Enough for them to be sharpening pitchforks and fingering their mobiles. Successful child-snatchers are usually lovely people that are unthreatening and not creepy at all.

Damnautocorrect · 04/09/2013 17:18

How on earth do you begin to educate on stranger danger on the net? As to them they aren't strangers but friends

Bramshott · 05/09/2013 09:07

I think all you can really do is explain that not everyone is good and kind, and that there are some people who might try to hurt children, and that our instincts are there for a reason and if something feels 'wrong' they mustn't worry about being rude, but just trust their instincts.

Bramshott · 05/09/2013 09:07

That wasn't meant just for the net, but generally.

curlew · 05/09/2013 09:18

It's a good thing that the chances of a child being approached by a stranger are practically zero, then, isn't it?

SarfEasticated · 09/09/2013 21:57

it frightened the life out of me - a few plausible lies and the children were hooked.

FreudiansSlipper · 09/09/2013 22:02

i rather children are not just taught the danger of strangers as those closer are far more likely to harm them should it happen

i was a little horrified when ds and his friend were running ahead of me (not far maybe 15 meters) and went round the corner his friend ran back to me and said we should not run to far just in case someone tries to grab us. he is only 5 :(