was this innocent or should i report it to the school?

[whyareallthegoodnicknamestaken]

Decided to let ds walk to pick dd up with me today (he's 19 months...BIG mistake!!)
Got half way there, he wanted to be picked up... To cut a long story short I ended up exhausted and covered in dog poo..
on the way home I was less that happy and ended up trying to walk ds by his reins, and ended up carrying him again because he had touched my coat with the dog poo on.
so there I was walking down the street with a face like thunder covered in dog poo trying to carry ds whilst restraining him from putting his dog poopy hands in his mouth when an old man came up and was making polite converstation. He had noticed dd was from the local school, he then asked her what class she was in, and before I could intervene she had told him.
he seemed nice enough but I don't like the idea of him asking her what class she was in, am I being over protective?

You were having a bad day, OP and reacted OTT about this friendly older man.

Chalk it down to experience. As you say, your emotions were a bit off and better you posted here about it than doing anything else. MN can be a good safety valve.

It is very sad that there is now this suspicion about men who happen to be in the vicinity of a school or other place with children. An older man I meet while dog walking was recently reported to the police by over-zealous parents because he used a park behind a school. He was totally devastated by this and practically in tears, feeling his good reputation was in tatters. This is a man who is a qualified football coach and referee and who has police checks etc to work with children. He has been involved in youth football for years - and all totally voluntarily.

Luckily, there was absolutely no evidence of any wrong doing and the school actually put out an article in their newsletter, in an attempt to make it clear he has been unjustly accused and hopefully avert any mob mentality.

TBH, he's the sort of chap who should be nominated for an award for service to the community, not subject to the sort of hysteria that sees a man near a school and automatically assumes the worst. That is not being cautious.

As for women not being involved - Rose West? Myra Hyndey?

Not saying you made it up Nerris, just that these scary stories spread like wildfire and put the fear into people, that affects our judgement I think. Your abduction story must be one of the real ones, my point is that people don't always hear real stories so it's hard to get a picture of what the dangers are.

All three situations mentioned were threads Spotty but the over riding opinion seems to differ.

OP, I think you should phone the Daily Mail to do a sad face story.

Sick old bastard tried to talk to my child when I was there.

How very dare he.

I think you'll find that most posters are consistent in their opinions Pipbin.
All the physically and sexually abused children I've encountered over the many years I've been a teacher have all been victims of a family member.
I've never personally known anyone abducted or groomed by a stranger, that seems to be a far more uncommon experience.

there are no more paedophiles now than there were 50 years ago, there are however signifficantly more avenues by which to whip up hysteria and panic. People who avoid strangers are no less likely to be abused than people who don't, because only about 5% of abuse cases happen at the hands of a stranger.

The worst case of abuse I know of happened at the hands of a woman... Myra hindley, vanessa George, Rose west.... all notorious killers/child abusers, all were women. We even had a suspected paedophile on mn once.... a woman... who befriended mn'ers and their children...

One day the children you are bringing up to trust no-one and speak to no-one will be out there in the wider world, on their own, probably in five or six years time when they travel independently to secondary school. How do you expect those children to ever become independent and confident if you bring them up in a culture of fear?

Op, that sounds really stressful!! We made some lovely friends with the neighbours who had similar routines to us when I used to walk to school with toddlers and young school aged children. Sometimes it made the difference between a whingy walk home and the start of much more positive day. See the good when you can and the good will find you when you need it.

Skating individual posters are consistent but the overall opinion of the thread as a whole seems to vary.

Yes.

Oh for god sake, hysterical or what

Go in then and tell them yet another ridiculously precious person

. Unlike poor DP who gets looked at like he is some kind of predator for walking down the street with my little niece

What on earth is your dp doing? Men walk along the street with their daughters all the time. Wouldn't people just assume that she is his daughter?

Dear God, I really have heard it all now. This makes me sick. Poor man.

He just asked what year she was in. The older generation mostly don't know year 1, 2 etc (my mum refuses to understand it).

I think an old and wise person should be aware of how things can be interpreted- i.e. you do not ask which class a child attends, the same way you wouldn't ask "which one is the house you live in?". Lots of questions can be asked to a child that would not include any personal info details.
I think OP shouldn't report it because it doesn't constitute "suspucious behaviour" but I understand a parent's alarm bells gping off.

Urgh I would be more bothered about the dog poo

Mumsy

In this case an old and wise person would say absolutely nothing as everything can be interpreted in the wrong way by people looking for evil intent.

seriously?

Like, really & truly seriously?

No amount of dog shit could make me act that barking.

asking what class the child is in, is in no way the same as asking them to point out which house they live at.

Like, really & truly seriously?

No amount of dog shit could make me act that barking.

Agreed!

I think the OP has got the message!

Hope you have a better, less dog pooey day tomorrow OP!

mumsy

Unless you are of the 'evil peedows' hiding behind every tree school of thought it is a completely innocent and guileless question that is only prone to misinterpretation by the paranoid or stupid.

At DD's school they only have 1 class a year and don't call them year 1 , year 2 etc, its kindergarten, class 1, class 2... according to my grandmother that was quite common when she was a child so maybe when the old man said what class are you in he just meant what year, or maybe he knows a child or teacher at the school and was just trying to work out if she was in their class, or he was trying to be nice and seem interested and couldn't think of anything else to ask.

I've had conversations with kids about what class they're in when I've not even heard of their school before because I've been faced with a child happily telling me which school they're at and could tell they were expecting a follow up question so have thought to myself, all schools have classes, that's better than asking if they like school in case they say no, I hate it.

If he was a paedo then he'd hardly be grooming your daughter in front of you, would he? You are being ridiculous.

I don't think he had nefarious intentions as he was already making polite conversation with you, despite your being covered in stinky dog poo:) he included your dd which is quite polite imo. If she was standing listening, he probably felt it rude to ignore her. He may have GC at the school, who knows?

And on a completely different topic raised- a child would be groomed in front of parents. I have read molesters etc are generally someone the child knows and feels comfortable with, so that generally means the parents do as well.

So it's not so much stranger danger as tricky people, who could be anyone, stranger or not.

It's just making conversation. It's not like he could ask her if she had performed any operations or put out any fires. He was jsut talking to her about the stage of her life she is currently in.

Like when people ask how old your baby is. Most of them don't give a hoot. It is social niceties at work.