children befriended by elderly man without adult close by

[Sum1els]

2 little kids sat in front of me at front of a bus, quietly joking around, doing kid stuff. No sign of a parent but they were ok.

Oldish fella gets on and sits across from them, see's them joking about, strikes up a conversation with them.

He was friendly enough and they quickly seemed at ease after he asked em a few questions, wheres your mam (nannies downstairs) oh you have a nanny (so he clearly didnt know them), where have you been (Cinema), what film etc, then asking them about movies etc. Goes on for 5 or so minutes.

Anyways, while chatting, kid drops a big tub of popcorn on the floor, picks it up. Guy comments on a picture on the tub, kid doesnt understand, so guy reaches across to the kids seat and touches the picture he meant on the tub, while its on the kids lap.

I know there's no law against talking to kids, but once you start invading personal space like that, when you can easily just explain what you mean seemed really creepy to me.

So i asked him to leave them alone.

He said he wasn't doing anything wrong, he didnt touch them and that he is a teacher and has had all his checks done

Im a bloke btw

What do you think is acceptable and not in situations with unaccompanied children?

Are we too over protective of kids or is it right to be suspicious?

Personally i wouldnt chat to an unaccompanied child unless they needed help or spoke to me first, and even then i would keep my answers simple and if they continued Id gently advise them not to talk to strangers.

I don’t think badly of you for having said what you did, it came from good intentions and it doesn’t sound like you were rude or aggress. Don’t beat yourself up. It just isn’t something I would have felt I needed to do, that’s all.

come off it, he will definitely know what she thought he was up to. You wouldn't mind (indirectly) beign accused of grooming kids to have sex with them then?

Hang on…what happened to “trust your gut” and “safeguarding is everyone’s business”? Few questions, how old was this man? At what point did you start to become uncomfortable? If I’d was in the first 5 seconds of him talking to them then you were probably being unreasonable, but if you were fine with it at the beginning then got more uncomfortable as the interaction continues then I’d say YANBU. When you said to leave them alone, how did he tell you he was a teacher etc? Specifically mentioning that he had his checks done was odd. If he was a currently a teacher then he would be aware of safeguarding and that a lone male talking to two unaccompanied children on the top floor of a bus was unadvisable. The whole “you can’t speak to anyone these days without getting into trouble” has come about for a reason. It’s not always abusive, but not respecting boundaries is just rude and it usually happens to people who have been taught to be nice and not talk back ie women and children.

I hated being spoken to by random people on public transport when I was young. Still do. Interesting that he assumed you thought he was doing something dodgy. Even if he wasn’t, why did he get to take their attention? They might have wanted to talk about but stuff without any grown ups being around but they instead had to be nice to the old bloke. Whatever.

OP, you had an instinctive reaction to the situation. Please don’t ignore that because of what MNetters have said. Yes you might be wrong but that one time you’re right could literally change someone’s life.

It does put the children in a really difficult situation though. We tell our children not to talk to strangers. I was just having this conversation with my ds yesterday as he is getting to an age where he will be getting the bus himself. It’s really difficult to say it’s ok if the man seems kind and elderly but if they seem a bit dodge don’t talk to them. So I just have a rule not to speak to strangers. I tel them there isn’t any reason for an adult to need to speak to a child on their own.

I wonder if you subconsciously picked up on something that indicated this man wasn't safe for these children so that the act of reaching over was the final straw rather than the first thing. Gavin de becker has good theories on thisin his book Gift of Fear. I don't know if you were right or not but I think it's better to advocate for children sat without their own adult than it is to have done nothing when in fact they were unsafe.

Asking where their parents were etc could be concern or could be opportunist.

It is natural to be less concerned if a woman/mother asks the children where are their parents because a woman is massively less likely to be looking for an opportunity to assault/abduct etc children (statistical fact).

Of course most people would mean no harm but unfortunately opportunist predators do exist so while they do safeguarding the kids is the most important thing.

I'm not saying OP needed to intervene at that point but nothing wrong with being vigilant. Perhaps he got vibes he can't put his finger on. "Trust your gut" it could save your life is certainly a thing I have read in the case of women's safety.

"Personally i wouldnt chat to an unaccompanied child unless they needed help or spoke to me first, and even then i would keep my answers simple and if they continued Id gently advise them not to talk to strangers."

Speaking to people who you don't know in certain circumstances, such as being on a bus, is fine. In fact it teaches the art of conversation. He might have thought that he was calming them down by engaging with them, before they get too silly. I think that it's important for both sexes to be engaging with children. You went too far. I hope that you haven't put him off.

Not sure what you think I meant, but I said that I, as a poster, don’t think the OP (male) was being ridiculous or whatever else to have raised a concern. They seemed to be beating themself up a little, and I feel that is unnecessary.

I’m surprised at the replies here to be honest.

Men don’t generally befriend children for innocent purposes. Sorry, they just don’t.

Do you trust your gut when you see women being hassled?
Do you get similar vibes in a pub or similar when there are men around women?

There's a hell of a lot of bias in most people's assumption making.

You say he was elderly, so not a teacher any longer, yet was quick to express he had all his checks, rather a strange response. I'm sorry people are trying to make you feel bad for trusting your instincts and trying to protect children. I'm wondering how full the bus was that he had to sit across from them. As an ex teacher I'd have thought he'd know better to be honest.

When my kids were little, preschoolers, a guy on the allotment used to befriend them every time we went.

It got quite intrusive, and annoying, and we got suspicious eventually because he was always trying to take them off to his shed with him by themselves. They'd follow him innocently and I'd them follow and keep in view.

Something about it just wasn't right, my instincts were triggered. The problem is you feel guilty for thinking it, so I tried really hard to talk myself out of anything suspicious.

One time I was by myself with them (instead of my husband being there) and he came over. I'd put them in their car seats already, and he insisted on faffing about with the car seat straps, "making sure they were on properly". It was completely unprecedented behaviour, I've never had anyone "check" that I've put the car seats on properly.

I was flustered with two little kids to strap in, stuff to pack away, plus anxious about the guy and why he was there. Anyway, cut a long story short, although he claimed to be making sure the straps were on properly he took ages, and it looked to me as though he was just making an excuse to touch them in that area.

My husband has had many levels of safeguarding training and said that this is something they do, trying to desensitize kids to intimate contact. Essentially breaching personal body space.

I was mortified and disgusted, and we never went back alone. After that we went in another entrance and exit so we didn't have to walk past him, and I watched him like a hawk. It was creepy and definitely weird.

I didn't report it because who to - and because of all the responses on this thread. I just wanted to say to the OP - trust your instincts, you were there. You knew there was something odd, there was.

Are you comparing women to children?

Big over reaction imo. How invasive to somebody's personal space is pointing to a picture on something they are holding?

It sounds like the elderly gentleman was lonely, saw two kids and started chatting on bus about what they'd been doing.

Bus journey ends they both go their separate ways. To more or less accuse this man of being a paedophile is really stretching the imagination.

He said he had all of his checks because op accused him of being a paedophile

Especially those alone

What?! Why on earth does a stranger on a bus have the right or responsibility to teach a child the art of conversation???? Not their circus and definitely not their monkeys. Why do you think the children needed calming down?! What is it suggested they were hysterical is boisterous? Have you been on a bus with constant on it? Noise is almost guaranteed and it is very rare that an adult will engage with them to keep things calm or engage them in some pleasant repartee 🙄

What you did was over the top and unnecessary. Of course as a society we need to be aware of dodgy things. But this man did nothing wrong.

We tell our children not to talk to strangers.

Actually, you are advised not to do this. Because 99.9% of strangers are perfectly normal folks, and in an emergency a child should feel that they can approach ANY adult for help. The message should be that children should never go off with a stranger and all the stuff about the PANTS rule as promoted by the NSPCC.

Poor old bugger on the bus, chatting to kids about the cinema and some "peedo" hunter accuses him of all sorts. Even though you didn't scream in his face about sexual abuse OP, it will have been crystal clear to him what you thought he was up to.

Some people have such a twisted way of looking at the world. Same people probably who post about their child falling off their bike, or getting lost, or losing their phone and not being able to call home and NOBODY HELPED. Well no, because there are people like the OP who think that any unrelated man talking to a child is up to no good.

And it isn’t instinct so much as common sense.

It isn’t the job of unaccompanied children to make lonely adults feel less lonely, and any adult with a grain of common sense knows this.

He didn't accuse him of being a pedophile he pulled him up at getting in their space, it's almost like he had the response on the tip of his tongue

I think that’s where the line is. If child is with adult. Then fine to chat and “teach them the art of speaking to strangers” but adults should really not being talking to unaccompanied children. I would be glad if this had been my child

any unrelated man talking to a child is up to no good.

They often are up to no good.

That's just not true. Most children are abused in the home.