White van suspected of abduction attempt

poetix said :

And this is one of the reasons why I pick up my daughter every day from school, and my husband drops her there.  (Used to walk together, no longer can.)

No eight year old should be doing this on her or his own.

Mostly because of traffic, which an eight year old can not possibly understand.  However the occasional pervert confirms me in my decision.

Thankfully this little girl was able to escape.  Many children are more gullible.

Her parents clearly prepared her well. Little to do with being gullible.

And there were plenty of kids going to school on the bus from a very young age when I grew up. Being driven or even escorted to school was rare then.

I would suggest that you go read some stats on the risk of child abduction by strangers. Your child is at an infinitely higher risk of coming to serious harm by being driven around every day.

And by 8 a child should have been taught how to cross roads safely. You seriously underestimate kids if you think this isn’t possible, but it does take considerable time and effort and requires you to cross lots of roads with them. They don’t just magically gain that skill at 12.

The world isn’t less safe than it was 30 years ago but for some reason 8 has become the new 4.

There were stories of attempted abductions when I was in primary. It’s nothing new. I hope they manage to find this guy and warn him off and/or keep an eye on him. But the best way to protect your kids is still to teach them how to respond to any threat of abuse, especially by people they know as that is a way more likely threat.

poetix said :

Many children are more gullible.

True.

Long time ago I recall that these abductors used the lines…

Hi. I’m your mother/father’s friend.
Your parents have had a bad accident and they are now in a hospital and really sick.
They desperately want to see you and asked me to take you to them.

There are variations of it.
But I’m hoping that most parents of young children are aware of this deception, and teaching their children to be vigilant.

Statistics in from my boy’s class today
1 child walked to school
4 children rode to school
1 child came by bus
14 children came by car

Just sad

Watson said :

chewy14 said :

Normally I’m all for parents giving children more freedoms and responsibility but isn’t eight years old just a little bit too young to be walking alone to the bus stop?

Although I will say I don’t know the area so I may be completely off base.

Not sure why you start this comment with “I’m all for…” because the rest indicates that you are not. An 8yo is perfectly capable of walking to the bus stop and taking the bus by themselves. I don’t know why you would think they are not.

Because they’re eight.
I’m from the generation where our parents let us run around the neighbourhood for many hours after school but even in those times it wasn’t til we were nine/ten or so that we were given freedoms to catch the bus or ride to school fully unattended.

Hearing of this just seems weird when we’re told that parents are all scared of their children being abducted and wrap them in cotton wool. Maybe the constant media messages on these issues is what threw me initially.

And this is one of the reasons why I pick up my daughter every day from school, and my husband drops her there. (Used to walk together, no longer can.)

No eight year old should be doing this on her or his own. Mostly because of traffic, which an eight year old can not possibly understand. However the occasional pervert confirms me in my decision.

Thankfully this little girl was able to escape. Many children are more gullible.

chewy14 said :

Normally I’m all for parents giving children more freedoms and responsibility but isn’t eight years old just a little bit too young to be walking alone to the bus stop?

Although I will say I don’t know the area so I may be completely off base.

No.

chewy14 said :

Normally I’m all for parents giving children more freedoms and responsibility but isn’t eight years old just a little bit too young to be walking alone to the bus stop?

Although I will say I don’t know the area so I may be completely off base.

Not sure why you start this comment with “I’m all for…” because the rest indicates that you are not. An 8yo is perfectly capable of walking to the bus stop and taking the bus by themselves. I don’t know why you would think they are not.

Normally I’m all for parents giving children more freedoms and responsibility but isn’t eight years old just a little bit too young to be walking alone to the bus stop?

Although I will say I don’t know the area so I may be completely off base.

Watson said :

Spot on reaction from the girl. I role play this sort of stuff occasionally with my 8yo but our imaginary abductors are usually a lot more cunning.

What are they going to do when they find this guy though? He hasn’t committed a crime and it would be hard to proof what his intentions were. Of course it sounds like a great idea for the police to have a chat to him to let him know he is now on their radar. But that must be all they can do at this stage.

I would think that any attempt to coerce a minor to get into a van would fall into the category of attempted abduction

Captain RAAF said :

Hasn’t this van and filth been doing this for a while?

There has been a few report captain but nothing confirmed as yet.