Man in playground with a laptop Post Reply

[littlesleep]

There is no need to get defensive. I see plenty of fathers with their children but if a lonely man/woman was acting suspiciously, i would note/report. Best case scenario is that nothing is wrong.

I personat wouldnt casually go and sit at the playground when there are plenty of other benches

[zaarin_2003]

I would say the OP was there when none of us were so we can't say what she did was wrong. If she felt threatened or had a feeling something was wrong then why bash her for acting on it?

...

For me personally if a man or woman is in the playground acting suspiciously I really wouldn't care about statistics and rights. I'll report it.

Common sense says that you should try to avoid all danger. Not ignore some because it is statistically less likely to occur.

Actually, it would not be common sense at all to try to avoid all danger, because that is impossible. Common sense would be to assess risks in a rational way and act appropriately. We all do it. Crossing the street is vastly more dangerous than anything else discussed here but we take the necessary precautions. We don't panic when approaching a road on foot or assume every approaching car is driven by a drunk or maniac.

Speaking of common sense and acting appropriately, I have not meant to be critical of the OP personally, and I agree that if you feel your child is under threat from someone acting suspiciously then yes, you should take appropriate action. That is just good parenting.

However, we can only go on the information available and on the basis of the information available the action taken was not appropriate. Here we are told that the situation is that there is a man alone in a playground and using a computer. There is no information given to suggest he was acting suspiciously at all.

Instead, there seems to be a view amongst some people that men should be regarded as a potential threat to kids if they are nearby and alone, regardless of whether they are actually acting in a threatening way. Simply, it seems the fact that this solitary person was male was threatening enough in and of itself.

As a man, I personally find that more than a little insulting. There is simply no basis in reality to justify this view, given the incredible rarity that a child is abused or abducted from a public place by a stranger.

90% of child abuse is conducted by friends and relatives of the child - yet we trust, whilst also keeping an appropriate amount of awareness. We do not panic at the first sight of a relative.

[Medway]

I completely agree with everything you have just said, previous poster. The assessment of risk in this case, and the response, was completely excessive imho. I wonder why our generation of parents is so paranoid and so disproportionate in our response to 'threats', particularly those posed by men, paedophiles etc etc etc. It's probably to do with the 24 hour news culture, high profile cases, the BBC 1970's Saville etc revelations, and the emergence of 'professional parenting' (by that i mean reading loads of parenting books, planning absolutely every minute of kids time, fretting over nappy brands and when to feed solid food) - we have lost the plot!! (I know I am guilty of this, and others reading this - ask yourself honestly - do you think your Mum controlled every aspect of your life like you do your childrens'?). But we must question what this is doing to our children - the ability to trust, to decide where real risk lies, to play, to be unsupervised etc etc. They are going to grow up paranoid wrecks or else utterly fed up with controlling Mummy.

[Tinker-Bell]

It is sad that the world is a scary place and that we live our lives with caution always looking over our shoulder. The news and papers do tend to keep us all on edge and sometimes we may be over reacting. Better to safe than sorry.

[Pud1]

You're absolutely right Medway. We need to be careful or we will have a generation of paranoid children who lack independence. I think our generation is sometimes over involved. This is very apparent at the school gate. Some parents seem to be in the school office nearly everyday, wanting to know this, that and the other. I seem to remember my mum just dropping me off and letting me get on with it. I don't remember her ever crossing the threshold!

[supergirl]

OMG
I must warn my husband as he might have reported today... He called me at 4.30pm telling me his meeting had been cancelled and was in CJ asking where we were. Told me we were getting ready to go to playground so we ll meet there. (Not the clapham common one tho). But due to a little tantrum before going he had waited 15min before we arrived.
He was sitting on a bench with his blackberry doing some work in the meantime. How suspicious is that i wonder?
When i ll tell him tonight he ll fell off his chair. He sat there waiting for us in good view of the gate so the children could see him and run to him.

Did you think that this man might have been in the same situation?

[zaarin_2003]

I completely agree with everything you have just said, previous poster. The assessment of risk in this case, and the response, was completely excessive imho. I wonder why our generation of parents is so paranoid and so disproportionate in our response to 'threats', particularly those posed by men, paedophiles etc etc etc. It's probably to do with the 24 hour news culture, high profile cases, the BBC 1970's Saville etc...

From my research I know that people are increasingly disproportionate in their assessment of the risk posed by other people in general. Our perception of the risk posed by crime has shot up in the last few decades and perhaps unsurprisingly the amount of news and other information available to us about crime has also increased due to television and the internet.

I'm no believer in ignorance is bliss or in not providing people with negative news. We should all be kept informed and live in an incredible time of free information. But there seems to be a drawback in that a greater awareness of crime seems to have brought a greater sense that crime is all around us. Whatever the truth, something is going wrong, because surveys show that people firmly believe that crime is currently getting worse and that your child is more likely to be abducted or mugged or attacked than ever before, when the reality is that crime has been dropping for years, which tends to surprise people. We just didn't hear about it as much as we do now.

[Sherlika]

You are all unbelievable. I often read these posts to have some fun and pinch myself if you are real people, but this post tops it all. It is real to have such concern?

This guy may be a writer and was looking for inspiration or need to observe people. There is nothing wrong with that. A public space is still public.

[Medway]

Sherlika - most people on this thread are agreeing with you, they are not 'unbelievable'. Glad this has given you a laugh though.

Seriously, I wonder if MummyDanni has read the different views here, if so do you still think you were right MD to call the police? (we were not there after all)