Do your children ever say too much to complete strangers?

[Lonelymum]

I was in the vets today with my 4 children, picking up our 2 kittens from their neutering op and we had to wait about half an hour in total. While there, my children were cooing over any cats they saw and passed a few comments to the owners.

Then, in came a man with two cats and sat next to us and he was as chatty as my children so for about 20 minutes, they were all gabbing away. At first, I was pleased as it is nice to see your children making conversation with adults, exchanging anecdotes etc, all good social skills, especially for ds1 who is very shy but who was joining in with the others today.

The man let on where he lives and I mentioned the name of our road, feeling it was reasonable safe to do so as it is a big main road with lots of houses. But then, a bit later on, he let on he works in our road (in a mental health unit near our house - presumably he works there, anyway!) I didn't say that was near us, but the next thing I know, my children have piped up how near that was to us and told him our house number. From that information, he clearly knew exactly which was our house - he described it - and I felt distinctly uncomfortable that he knew, even though he seemed really nice, has a job which presumably he would have to be a decent person to do, and didn't seem pervy in any way.

Do you think I should feel uncomfortable about my children telling a stranger (albeit someone they are meeting in my presence) their address? Later I heard him asking them which school they went to. I feel my boys at least (aged 9 and 8) really should know better than to give away these details, but I don't want to sound paranoid and frighten them by telling them so.

What do you think?

It is a tough one isn't it. You don't want to instill irrational fears into your children and make them shy and withdrawn, but at the same time (unfortunately) they need to be made aware that the world is not 100% safe so they do need to be cautious in certain situations etc. DD is 4 and ds 1, so we are just getting into the "no talking to strangers" type conversations.

I find it very hard to go down this no talking to strangers line. Up until now, although I have sort of discussed it with them a bit, I have tended to rely on their natural shyness (ds1), or the fact that they rarely walk anywhere without me or (now that they do walk to school without me) the safety in numbers idea, eg I often tell ds1 to make sure he stays with dd (5) on their walk to school.

I don't feel easy telling them they must never talk to an adult they don't know as he could be a raving lunatic or a sexual pervert. I mean, what sort of world do I want my children to believe they live in?

But then I hear them giving out their address and school to someone, and dd was practically touching him she was so close to him, and I wonder what I should do.

Exactly, where do you draw the line? You want to keep them blissfully unaware of the dangers out there for as long as possible, but to to the detriment of their safety.

it is a worry isnt it? he was probably a decent bloke but u never know. i know when my kids are old enough to understand im gonna tell them not to talk to strangers under any circumstances (male or female) unless i am with them and not to give any info out, i,e, address etc.
maybe your kids wouldnt of done that if u werent with them.

Ds2 would have done, definitely. He is the exact opposite of ds1 in that he chats to anyone and everyone, at enooooormouuuuuuus length. I was in tesco the other day at the checkout, and the checkout woman was the same as the one who had been subjected to ds2's chat just before Christmas and I was thinking, at least she won't realise who I am as I am here without my children, at which point, she said, "You are the lady with 4 children aren't you? I remember your son...." and went on to tell me all sorts of things ds2 had told her including his DOB and ds1's DOB!! I didn't know whether to be more amazed at how much ds2 had told her in such a short time, or at how much she remembered 3 weeks later!