Social experiment. How easy is to abduct a child? Scary!

[marylander1940]

Social experiment. How easy is to abduct a child? Scary!

 

If anything’s guaranteed to work parents of small children into a complete and instant panic, it’s mention of kidnappers lurking at local playgrounds. To wit: a

aiming to warn moms and dads of such abductions is quickly going viral, drawing more than a million views and steadily climbing since being posted on Saturday. It’s the work of popular video blogger Joey Saladino, known by his huge online following as extreme prankster JoeySalads.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/heres-what-experts-had-to-say-about-that-118138013097.html

 

[N13]

Truly Frightening!!!!!

[+ FreshFluff]

The children saw Joey sitting and talking to their moms before the psuedo-abductions. As pointed out in the Yahoo article, it's not surprising that the kids trusted him.

 

However, I don't understand the "free range" parents who tell their kids that it's ok to talk to strangers as long as the kid doesn't leave with the stranger. What's the upside of letting kids talk to random adults they don't know?

[marylander1940]

The children saw Joey sitting and talking to their moms before the psuedo-abductions. As pointed out in the Yahoo article, it's not surprising that the kids trusted him.

 

However, I don't understand the "free range" parents who tell their kids that it's ok to talk to strangers as long as the kid doesn't leave with the stranger. What's the upside of letting kids talk to random adults they don't know?

 

Btw, he could have asked the mom for directions to a nearby place, and bee seen by the kids as someone who's a friend of mom or mom "knows".

[+ sync]

I don't give any weight to the critics of this video. One of the experts' comments included the fact that displaying animals is one of the top five tactics used by abductors. I would say this video is worth viewing by anyone and everyone with any childcare responsibilities.

 

Thanks for the post, Maylander1940.

[+ FreshFluff]

I don't give any weight to the critics of this video. One of the experts' comments included the fact that displaying animals is one of the top five tactics used by abductors. I would say this video is worth viewing by anyone and everyone with any childcare responsibilities.

 

Thanks for the post, Maylander1940.

 

I was going to add that I find the "Don't worry too much about strangers as a majority of kids are abducted by people they know" stuff annoying. That doesn't help the parents of the 10% of abducted kids who were taken by strangers.

 

However, the "experiment" does not seem honest. It would have been better to take one of the moms aside (while the others watched the kids) and let her share with the rest. The other problem is that each kid knew that his/her mother (or her friends) were nearby and could see what was going on. That might make the kid think that the mom approves of this stranger.

 

Here's my anecdote: I ran into a lost kid once at a store and wanted to take him over to customer service so that we could call the parents over the PA system. Although most parents tell their kids to look for a woman (preferably a mother with kids) if lost, he was clearly scared to talk to me.

[marylander1940]

I don't give any weight to the critics of this video. One of the experts' comments included the fact that displaying animals is one of the top five tactics used by abductors. I would say this video is worth viewing by anyone and everyone with any childcare responsibilities.

 

Thanks for the post, Maylander1940.

 

It's always nice to contribute with something other than escorting, gay related issues or all the pics I keep uploading on the gallery

 

Thanks for posting!

 

I hope many of yinz forward the video from youtube to your relatives and friends who have kids, just search on youtube: child abduction experiment. I hope this video will help parents explain such a difficult and personal subject.

[+ FreshFluff]

So what advice would you give to parents other than to keep an eye on their child and teach them not to talk to strangers?

 

From the article:

But his test is nothing new or surprising, according to Nancy McBride, executive director for the Florida regional office of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Kids. “It’s been done a hundred times,” she tells Yahoo Parenting. “And young children are easily tricked, which is why we tell parents they have to stay with their young kids.” She also notes that the results of Saladino’s video are hardly accurate. “A really important piece to me is that this guy sat down with each mom, which I’m sure the kids saw,” she says. “So the perception [for them] is that this guy’s okay.”

[marylander1940]

So what advice would you give to parents other than to keep an eye on their child and teach them not to talk to strangers?

 

Depends on the situation, a few years ago a child got lost in the woods and when he heard the rescuers calling his name he hid because they were "strangers". If a child gets lost at a store he should talk say it to an employee or a woman with or without children about his situation.

 

In this case the guy was a stranger even if they saw him talking to mom... the situation of a stranger telling you to go away with him to see puppies, just go ask mom if that's ok with her before making any choice.

 

It's heartbreaking and every situation is different besides it should be reminded to them constantly without getting them scared about the world out there.

[anotherjohnindupont]

I don't give any weight to the critics of this video. One of the experts' comments included the fact that displaying animals is one of the top five tactics used by abductors. I would say this video is worth viewing by anyone and everyone with any childcare responsibilities.

 

Thanks for the post, Maylander1940.

 

+ 1

[RadioRob]

One thing we did in our family was used a codeword. If someone we were not expecting were to ever say they were told to come pick us up, or that something happened to our parents... that person would have to know our family codeword. If they did not know it, we were to consider it to be someone with bad intentions and react accordingly.

[+ WilliamM]

Things have really changed in this country. In the late 1940s, I took a public bus by myself at ages four and five to and from kindergarten in the next town (from Bedford to Lexington, Massachusetts). I guess the bus drivers got to know me and watched out. And those two towns were the epitome of suburbia in 1948 and 1949.

 

Still I stopped traveling alone a few years later when an incident happened in Lexington that really scared me. Maybe I was just lucky when I was younger.

[+ FreshFluff]

Things have really changed in this country. In the late 1940s, I took a public bus by myself at ages four and five to and from kindergarten in the next town (from Bedford to Lexington, Massachusetts). I guess the bus drivers got to know me and watched out. And those two towns were the epitome of suburbia in 1948 and 1949.

 

Still I stopped traveling alone a few years later when an incident happened in Lexington that really scared me. Maybe I was just lucky when I was younger.

 

I had a similar experience. I grew up in a suburb well after the scares about pedophile kidnappers had already begun. Even so, the neighborhood kids seven and up walked the two blocks between home and school together.

 

An incident happened to me too. I was a really naive little kid and had no idea what the guy was talking about.

[marylander1940]

Things have really changed in this country. In the late 1940s, I took a public bus by myself at ages four and five to and from kindergarten in the next town (from Bedford to Lexington, Massachusetts). I guess the bus drivers got to know me and watched out. And those two towns were the epitome of suburbia in 1948 and 1949.

 

Still I stopped traveling alone a few years later when an incident happened in Lexington that really scared me. Maybe I was just lucky when I was younger.

 

Me too, a very different life yet we all have seen crime going down a lot from the 80's till now.

[mike carey]

I had resisted watching this until now, and having now done so it is worrying. I agree that it's staged and the children may have seen their mothers talking to Joe, but it's quite unclear whether they actually did. Stranger danger is real but it doesn't warrant paranoia. The message should be for parents to be careful and not make assumptions about safety, but not to become paranoid.

 

As a 5-year-old (in 1960) I walked about a mile to school on my own even though my father taught in the school next door to mine and nobody thought anything of it. Things have changed since then but I don't think it is significantly more dangerous now than it was then.

[marylander1940]

I had resisted watching this until now, and having now done so it is worrying. I agree that it's staged and the children may have seen their mothers talking to Joe, but it's quite unclear whether they actually did. ....

 

Right on!

[rvwnsd]

I grew up on the Far Northwest Side of Chicago in the 1970's when it was one of the few parts of the city that was a hospitable place to raise children. It was often described as a suburb within the city and my friends and I routinely walked the mile to school when the weather was nice. I remember being taught in school (both public and private) to look for houses that displayed a special orange sign in the window signifying a safe place to go if I was being harassed or feeling threatened. We were also taught not to talk to strangers (stranger danger!) and to tell our teachers or parents if someone tried to lure us into a bad situation. I later learned that the Chicago Police, the public schools, Archdiocese of Chicago, and several churches created the "safe houses" program to ensure kids would be safe.

 

Those lessons, however, went unheeded by the victims of John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer who operated in Chicago and its near-in suburbs, including my neighborhood. (Although he lived in an unincorporated area just west of where I grew up, many of his victims were from NW Chicago) I haven't shared this with many people other than a judge when I was selected for a jury and a few close friends, but a then-eighth grader who routinely picked on me when I was in third grade went on to become one of his victims a years later.

[marylander1940]

I grew up on the Far Northwest Side of Chicago in the 1970's when it was one of the few parts of the city that was a hospitable place to raise children. It was often described as a suburb within the city and my friends and I routinely walked the mile to school when the weather was nice. I remember being taught in school (both public and private) to look for houses that displayed a special orange sign in the window signifying a safe place to go if I was being harassed or feeling threatened. We were also taught not to talk to strangers (stranger danger!) and to tell our teachers or parents if someone tried to lure us into a bad situation. I later learned that the Chicago Police, the public schools, Archdiocese of Chicago, and several churches created the "safe houses" program to ensure kids would be safe.

 

Those lessons, however, went unheeded by the victims of John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer who operated in Chicago and its near-in suburbs, including my neighborhood. (Although he lived in an unincorporated area just west of where I grew up, many of his victims were from NW Chicago) I haven't shared this with many people other than a judge when I was selected for a jury and a few close friends, but a then-eighth grader who routinely picked on me when I was in third grade went on to become one of his victims a years later.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne_Gacy

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPX4jk3JEto

[Rod Hagen]

This feeds into the fear that if your kids are allowed to be independent, they'll be kidnapped. These kinds of crimes are down, and yet today people call the police and/or shame American parents for allowing their kids occasional, important, freedom to walk or play together or alone, but without adults. It's a real shame:

http://www.freerangekids.com/crime-statistics/

[Kenny]

The overwhelming majority of abducted kids have been snatched by a parent, not a stranger, in the wake of bitter separation or divorce. Yes, kids and parents need to be careful, but videos like this are mostly just fear- mongering show biz.

[rvwnsd]

This feeds into the fear that if your kids are allowed to be independent, they'll be kidnapped. These kinds of crimes are down, and yet today people call the police and/or shame American parents for allowing their kids occasional, important, freedom to walk or play together or alone, but without adults. It's a real shame:

http://www.freerangekids.com/crime-statistics/

 

The local NPR station's newsmagazine had a story about helicopter parenting vs free-range parenting. One guest stated that the last time she thought her daughter was safe was when she was pregnant because she always knew where she was and what she was doing. That scares me.