to be annoyed that a stranger lined my children up and took their picture in the park without asking permission?

[IlanaK]

In Regent's park today with a friend. Three boys all way ahea dof us on the path scootering. A group of tourist men lined them up with the stream and trees as backdrop and took their phot before we could get to them.

They got a right telling of from me though.

Was I being unreasonable?

It's best to ask. I think that J K Rowling case probably does say photographers can take pictures in the street of anyone, not just celebrities. We had an interesting incident in the house a few years ago. Lovely polish painters were here for 6 weeks. One works here to fund trips abroad in the rest of the year to photograph in madgascar etc. He showed me his portofolio - really lovely pictures. Anyway I said of course he can take pictures of the nanny and children and house etc (how the English live etc).

So he then asks the cleaner who is muslim if he can photograph her (answer - no, for religious reasons). Later she comes to see me saying he was taking some from the scaffolding. Then I see him and he says now. Later he proves it - on the images from that day none was of her. Anyway it does show that cultural differences exist.

Reading the OP, I'd be only minimally worried about why the men wanted the photo/what they'd do with it. My major concern, and the reason I think the OP was NBU is having a group of strange men approach my children without any sort of approach to me and ask them to do something unnecessarily. That I find far more disturbing and worth a 'telling off', you can't just approach other people's kids and make demands of them.

Obviously if its "someone's hurt, we need an ambulance" or "run, the apocalypse is coming" that's more reasonable circs but in this case I think the men were out of line for not looking for a parent first.

Chequers: "I don't know Ubergeekian, how many are there? Do tell."

I think it is up to those who tell us that it's a real danger to quantify that assertion, not for the rest of us to buy into any unproven hysteria.

There are - approximately - fifty million people in Britain between the ages of 16 and dead. How many of those do you think are actively going out to photograph smiling children and then photoshopping the happy head onto a scene of unspeakable gruesomeness?

Until I see evidence that this is a significant threat I am not going to waste time worrying about it. I am certainly not going to bring up my son to believe that every adult save his immediate family is hell-bent on his destruction.

Panics about child abuse - I'm thinking Orkney and Cleveland for a start - have done huge damage to children in this country, and not just to those directly involved. The surest way to create a dangerous world for our children is to invent it for them.

I think i'm too abrasive on this subject so I disappeared but ubergeekian I must disagree.

I wonder if your views stem from fear and suspicion of social services and other such like government interference.

I champion personal and individual freedom. But on this issue I would never ever take a single chance with my or anyone else's child.

So we'll have to disagree, as you would.

oh golly there goes the abrasive bit again..

Stuffitall I'm posting this again, because I am really interested in your response.

"Do I understand you? Do you never let your child ever talk to strangers?

For example, my 6 year old was skipping through town in his football kit today. An elderly man on a bench said "hello Beckham, how was the match?" Ds regaled him with a blow by blow account of the match and his goals, showed off his Player of the Match trophy - and it was an interraction which brightened both their days. In your world, I should presumably have dragged ds away - glaring at the man and teliing ds off for talking to strangers!"

oh sorry

If I was there I would allow it and afterwards say -- never do that if you are alone. Do not talk to that man again unless you are with me.

He would not be allowed to do it if alone.

Were you there?

And how would you explain that without completely ruining a charming and happy interlude?

I say that we don't know them well enough to talk to them without Mum and Dad around.

Hmm. Sad. What's wrong with "that was a nice man - do you think he's got a grandson like you?"

Truely really, most people are nice and just want to connect with other people. I want my children to be the sort of people who connect - not the sort of people who 3keep others at arms legnth.

So, post that hypothetical encounter, you would say: "Do not talk to that man again unless you are with me."

How could your DS not infer from that that the man was Bad? Would you take every such opportunity to instil in him the feeling that people are not to be trusted? Sorry, but that's how you make it sound.

And we have someone a few posts earlier assuring the OP she should call the police re the tourist incident.

Is the whole world mad nowadays, or just this one?

Hang on a minute.

How could he infer the man was bad? Do you imply to your kids that it's ok to talk to anyone? If not, what do you say? Children need to be told that some people are bad, and if we don't know them well enough, we don't talk them without mums and dads around. How can you possibly object to that? You're putting yourself in an absurd position.

What do you say to your children? Do you say it's ok to talk to anyone? Would you allow your child to talk to that man alone in the park?

Maybe I should be clearer. I let my primary schoolers walk to school alone, and in the winter that is in the dark. I encourage them to be friendly and confident with adults. They take risks which I either watch or hear about with fear and trepidation. They are not surrounded by cotton wool. They do not live in a risk free environment.

But I will not let strangers take pictures of them and I will allow them to talk to strangers or accept sweets and lifts even from people they know except named adults.

Why? Because I do not live in fairyland where we can all hold hands and sing a song and give the world a Coke. They are not old enough to distinguish who is crappy and who isn't. WE often can't distinguish who is crappy and who isn't. I am teaching them how best to do this. In the meantime there are rules.

I think your view is somewhat idealistic.

correction of course I will NOT allow them to talk to strangers or accept sweets and lifts even from people they know.

I happen to think that the risk to a child talking to an elderly man sitting on a bench in the market square of a county town is so vanishingly small that I wouldn't say anything to him - I don't see what I could say after the event which wouldn't imply that the man was bad. AND HE WASN"T! He was a man just like your dad and he told my son how brilliant he was and my son glowed. I am absolutely not going to do anything that detracts from that. We live in a ludicrously safe world - we are lying to our children if we tell them anything else.

Absolutely with you seeker - that sounds like a charming encounter
With reference to the OP, I think I'd have liked to be asked first but it could be they were visiting from a country where it is the norm for little children to play safely and unsupervised in a busy park in the middle of the day

So what do you say to them? Nothing? No danger anywhere? You must say something. I'm interested.

I think people are mixing up several different issues here amidst many a valid but opposing point.

I say - and have always said - if anyone says anything to you that you don't like then you can say no and say no loudly. Also, that secrets are nice things - so if anybody asks you to keep a nasty secret it's OK, you don't have to. And that any nice grown up won't mind if a child says no to them - there are a few nasty grown ups and they will mind, but it doesn't matter if you upset them.

Those are good things to say. But what do you allow them to do? Do you allow them to talk to strangers?

yes.

if you don't mind me asking.. what age are they allowed out alone when they might encounter strangers?

Everytime we have friends visiting from Mediterranean countries we have to advise them not to make a fuzz at children as they do in their own countries if they don't want to be confused with paedophiles.

In some places children are part of the landscape.

Perhaps I should make myself even clearer. At eleven I stopped for a second when someone asked me the time. In the five seconds while I looked at my watch he had me down an alley with his hand over my mouth. It doesn't take long. I didn't have time to "say no loudly", whether or not he minded, or whether or not I upset him. I escaped. But my children won't even stop.

Well said Dittany. I knew there were some statistics there to nail it.