Stranger Danger

On return to school this week we received a letter via the Juniors telling us that the police have warned them about reports of "suspicious cars" parked in the vicinity of the school during opening time.

My first reaction to this was that, in all probability, the suspicion was entirely in the minds of the people that reported the cars to the police and that it was just a couple of dads sitting in their cars after dropping their kids off, answering their text messages before heading off to work.  Something innocent like that.

But what if.....  The trouble is that no-one wants to be in the McCann situation where not only have they had their child abducted, they'd left said child asleep alone in the room, thus allowing the ease of her abduction.  No one wants to be the parent that plays the (extremely long) odds of child abduction and loses.

Typically, all this co-incides with me giving Jacob a little bit of independence in his walk to school.  Since he started Juniors, once we get to the school grounds he hares off down the service road leaving me and Sam to trail behind him carrying his bags; we normally arrive at the Juniors playground in time to hand him his bags before he goes in to school and we then turn round and walk back down the service road to the Infants.  So I asked him if he would like to walk down the service road to school by himself.  And yes he would, thank you.

I've had varying reactions from the parents of his peers; surprise, slight disapproval, real disapproval but also quite a lot of "hmm, not a bad idea".  My next door neighbour is quite keen for her boy to do this, so we're wondering if we can actually get our shit together and arrive at the school grounds at the same time, thus allowing Jacob and Oliver to walk round to school together.

But I think it's probably time for a Stranger Danger conversation with Jacob.  I'm going to have to give it quite a lot of thought before I do it, because it's a fine line to walk - particularly as, statistically speaking, it's more likely to be Not a Stranger Danger.  It's worth noting that the only known paedophile in this area turned out to be the Deputy Headmaster at the Junior School....