ErinLondon wrote:Hi, It is NOT strange or depressing to be concerned by some guy sitting in a fenced off children's playground alone without a child. It is actually a by-Law that an adult HAS to be accompanied by a child to be in a playground. It is mainly there to protect older unaccompanied children from being targeted by PEDOPHILES...
I'm sorry, but you have made my point.
My point is that we apparently live in a society where some people (like you, but not a majority here I note) think it is not just odd or eccentric for a man to sit in a park on his own, but an offence so vile as to warrant Police questioning and for there to be actual rules to prevent it. And why? "...to protect older unaccompanied children from being targeted by PEDOPHILES (sic)".
I will explain why I find this sort of comment so depressing.
Firstly, I'm sure we can all agree that no parent would want to instill fear in a child unnecessarily. So, I think it is worth doing a little research to see whether or not there truly is a threat which is worth worrying about more than others.
Think about what a child learns from hearing their mum call the police or worrying about a stranger who, as far as the child can tell, is doing nothing actually threatening. Is it really worth acting in a way which teaches a child that 'everyone they don't know could be a danger'? There are 7.5 million kids in the UK under 10. 274 were abducted last year, which is tragic, but not actually that many (they are more likely to choke on a biscuit) and less than 10 actually came to any harm. Also, most of those 274 were actually taken temporarily as a product of a marital dispute. Of course, even one child coming to harm at the hands of a stranger (or anyone) is too many. But before deciding to instil a socially-unhealthy fear of anyone you don't know in your child, its worth comparing the figures above to the fact that over 1000 children are injured in road traffic accidents per month. Crossing the road is a far, far greater danger by orders of magnitude, yet it seems parents are more likely to think it is ok to allow their child to cross the road, than to play in a playground in the presence of a solitary 'stranger', who is probably simply just enjoying a sit down.
My point is NOT (I repeat, not) that we should not be wary of strangers or protective of our children. Of course we should. And I am not saying that bad people do not exist out there - of course they do. But let's think and react sensibly. How likely is it that the man on the laptop is a threat really? Calling the Police because of one odd person doing nothing is an overreaction. I personally think that it is wiser to not overreact due to frankly baseless fears which risk making our children worry about other people when it is so unlikely that anything of this nature will ever happen to them.
It is worth repeating that a child is many times more likely to be abused or abducted by a relative or someone they know well than by a stranger. (So much so, that I am deliberately being facetious with the following; but by the same logic as arguing for the need for by-laws to prevent people being alone in a playground, you could argue for by-laws to prevent parents being alone with their kids in a playground without someone else being there to watch them.(
(Note, you say the law is the law, but breaking a by-laws does not necessarily mean you are breaking an actual law, i.e. a crime. By-laws are 'rules', like do not run in a swimming pool, rather than laws).
