Tooting Bec Playground - man pushing candy on toddlers Post Reply

[calgary]

Hello everyone,
My babysitter recounted an interaction she had yesterday in the north east corner playground of Tooting Bec Common - where the 1o'clock club is - just before noon. A "very old man" approached her and talked to her for a good 10min (just wouldn't go away) and then tried to give my boys, who were in the stroller, candy. She refused several times but the man continued to be insistent.

She agreed that, at the time, she thought it was odd that he was in the playground with no children but felt he was so old he was harmless....

It may be nothing, but I wanted to alert others as it was a reminder to me to be more alert and actually have the conversation with our babysitters on how to behave if strangers approach our kids as not all would think to mention it or possibly realise that there could be any nefarious intent.

Keep safe!

[Rowenag]

I wonder what he looks like because there is a very old man who lives in the flat beneath me, very near the playground you are talking about and he has displayed some strange behaviour. I have a 4 year old girl and whenever we come out of our flat he often hears my daughter chatting away and comes out to try and talk to her. One day, my partner had run back upstairs to get something from the flat and I had gone ahead and was sitting on the wall outside our flat whilst our daughter was in the foyer playing outside his door. He came out as usual and started asking her where her Mummy or Daddy were as although we were both nearby he couldn't actually see either or us. The next thing I knew, he had asked her to go into his flat to get some sweeties. Obviously at this point, I ran back inside the foyer and he looked quite flustered and shaken up when he saw me and mumbled something about sweets and went back inside. The next day he knocked on our door and offered us a couple of ice creams and said that he likes to give sweets to all the kids in the area and he wanted us to have the ice creams. It was all very strange and whilst he might be a kind old man and totally innocent, my instinct tells me to be wary of him. The problem is, my 4 year old daughter is very over friendly and talks to everyone in the street and although I have told her not to ever take sweets from people unless Mummy or Daddy say it is okay, I am not sure she understands or has taken it on board. Does anyone have any advice on how to get young children to understand stranger danger without either scaring them or stiliting their innocent, friendly personalities?

[Rowenag]

Oh yes, and he calls sweets 'candy' as well!