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The correct response is to stand your ground and say "No, I'm trying to connect a hurt child with their parents. Are you their parent? If not, we'll cut this favor short and just call child services".

Then do it. Call 911, say there's an injured, unattended child at the playground, and you're getting a hostile response from folks as you try to locate the guardian so you'd appreciate it if a social worker collected the kid until the parents can be found.

There is nothing illegal about speaking to a child, and when you soft play people like this you empower them. Let them have to show a cop a DL to get their kid out a squad car to learn their lesson if they can't handle polite help.

(Also, what is this narrative around HN about being accused of nefariousness at playgrounds? I used to eat my lunch at one near me because it was the only park with a trash can nearby and I didn't want to lug my trash back to my apartment before going on my way towards the city -- nobody ever said a word to me aside from asking for a ball if it rolled over.)

5 comments

> Are you their parent? If not, we'll cut this favor short and just call child services".

> Then do it. Call 911, say there's an injured, unattended child at the playground, and you're getting a hostile response from folks as you try to locate the guardian

That is the same thing, though! ... very quickly escalating a probable mundane situation to very serious accusations!

I'm the father of a 3 year old daughter, who I take to the playground multiple times per week. This is in Brooklyn, NYC. I haven't had any issues. But I believe the horror stories, there are just a sufficient number of crazy people out there, overly concerned "karens", or reddit warriors, or whatever. People overly confident in their judgement based on a cursory one-sided description of events. It seems you want to "fight fire with fire" or "play hardball" because that seems fair or necessary, but ... jeez. This is why guys are cautious and disengage.

> That is the same thing, though! ... very quickly escalating a probable mundane situation to very serious accusations!

I agree. If you think the child is in danger and you’re unable to find their parents after looking around then do what you need to do for the child.

But the other parent’s reaction shouldn’t be a factor. There’s no reason to call 911 and tell them you’re getting a “hostile reaction” from someone who isn’t involved.

This isn’t how serious people operate in the real world. It’s keyboard warrior talk and it’s very unhelpful.

If your daughter is crying, injured, and you are not close enough to get to her before OP, you deserve to have a social worker speak to her 1:1, full stop.

No.

Absolutely, 100%, no.

A child could be playing out of sight of a parent, maybe a block away with friends, and get mildly injured in a way that requires minor treatment. Or just crying because of a negative interaction with a peer.

This DOES NOT mean children at a certain age and maturity level cannot be trusted to gain some independence and leave their parents line of sight for short but increasingly longer periods of time.

The GP comment is about a three year old. Not old enough to be playing a block away with friends.

I trusted my then-3 year old to be 250' away at the opposite end of a neighborhood park that abuts my house. Usually within eye sight but not always.

Once he reached 5 and showed they understood the boundaries and requirements, to go out there by himself.

And once he reached 6, he was trusted to look after his 4 year old brother in this space.

And these restrictions seem very strict compared to how I grew up and especially compared to how those older than me grew up. Or in some other places in the world, where e.g. in Japan it's not rare for 6 year olds to ride the subway and do errands and downright common for 7-8 year olds.

It was when I was a kid.

What if the girl above is crying and appears hurt because she has been mollycoddled, and this is a strategy to get attention?

Perhaps the parents had clocked-on to this, and were just letting the girl self-soothe so she could learn resillience. Then, on-cue, in steps some member of the public with their own opinion on the child they're trying to raise. This would be kind of tiring for the fatigued parent of a toddler, and the frustration of the parent in the above scenario is justifiable, particularly as encounters like this could happen multiple times daily with a child like that.

Now they could also just be a shitty parent. There's plenty of them. But it's difficult for us to judge and make hard rules in cases like this.

Then the proper response to OP would have been "Yeah, don't worry, she's okay."

Kids need to be not kept in a tiny parental bubble and do some things with (manageable levels) of risk. They need to grow into independent people, and to understand their limits.

Our society is not as safe as I would like, but it is probably safer than ever before, when children roamed, played, and did errands over wide ranges.

My world was orders of magnitude smaller than my parents'; despite my efforts, my children's world is orders of magnitude smaller than mine. In part, this is because of attitudes like yours, where a child being unwatched is not okay under any circumstance.

This will surprise you, but I can guess the # of children you have.

lol what the fuck?

When I was a child, me and my friends were gone unattended all day every day.

What a terrible way to live life, always watched over.

What kind of helicopter parenting bullshit is this?

Involving the police in that situation would be an insane and risky escalation. The girl has a cold, anti-social caregiver/parent. That's sad, not illegal. There were zero reasons to involve the police. What happens when we call the police and the woman lies and says one of us was groping the child and her friends corroborate her lie? I'm not taking that risk.

Don't try to out-crazy a crazy person. That's not a game I'm going to play.

>Involving the police in that situation would be an insane and risky escalation. The girl has a cold, anti-social caregiver/parent. That's sad, not illegal.

That's factually incorrect.

There is nothing illegal about ignoring your kid while they cry on the playground.

Sic the cops on the crazy person and let nature happen.

> What happens when we call the police and the woman lies

The recording device in my pocket comes into play, and afterwards my attorney seeks damages and fees.

I hate that we live in a world where this feels like a remotely sane question but do you use an analog or digital device?

Because these days with anything digital there's a risk of the other side claiming it's a genML fake.

Are there analog recorders with an "infinite" loop of tape so you get automatic overwriting without manual intervention?

> I hate that we live in a world where this feels like a remotely sane question but do you use an analog or digital device?

> Because these days with anything digital there's a risk of the other side claiming it's a genML fake.

I think this type of thinking is quite cynical and overlooks an important factor: we have a presumption of innocence in this country, and these types of situations are adjudicated by reasonable, typically-intelligent, honest jurists - not computer programs.

If one party is asserting something is fake, they need evidence to do so: mere supposition isn't good enough, and if unsubstantiated, typically removes credibility from the accuser.

In this situation, no reasonable person is going to believe that believable video footage is going to be able to be fabricated on the fly - and to what end? Nobody was physically harmed, no property was damaged, and there are numerous witnesses who are very realistically risking their freedom and finances if they choose to corroborate an inaccurate restatement of facts.

This came out really petty and evil, suggesting revenge as taking away other people's kids just because you don't like them, and lying to the authorities.

In the original post they had confirmed that they were the parents, and were aware of her situation. While their response was rude, that's not a reason to threaten them to call 911 with lies, or to actually do it. I suggest you reread the original scenario.

I don't know. I might do that depending on $country. Person A's idiotic comment shouldn't punish the actual parent. So I would only call police if it is helpful. I have called police when I found a kid before. while I was in the phone I found the parents so said all good. I think the cop was relieved! But this is not in the US.

I agree with this statement. While it's not 'your job' to save the child, if you've already started along the path, you might as well see it through to the end.

If you never found the child's parents, you'd have to call CPS. Being prevented from finding the child's parents, just necessitates you move that step forward.

Of course, it's not 'your job' so technically you could abandon the child at any point but it does feel a bit heartless to give a kid hope, then say 'meh you're on your own, this is too troublesome'. As for just leaving the child with others who are complaining, I doubt that's a good idea. They were making no move to help, and bystander effect will probably keep them from ever doing a thing.

This response may be practical but it's sad and indicative of the problem at hand. Society is so distrusting and litigative that the sensible way to help a child is to call the cops?? those ACAB guys that kill dogs?

I'm not even saying you're wrong necessarily, but the whole situation is fucking cooked.

How do we learn to trust each other again?

I find it ironic that you talk about distrust but then use ACAB, which I assume means "all cops are bad" (cursory googling).

Cops experience professional deformation. Most of the other humans they see at work have been bad or have been involved in something bad. This eventually has an effect on anyone. It's not a good effect. They start to expect it in other people, they start to assume the only folks they can trust are the ones they usually see doing the "right" thing (other cops). This turns them into bad people.

The effects only get more pronounced in a society where literally every lunatic could have a gun and could therefore murder you at the drop of a hat. Trusting a strange situation will mean your death, eventually. It's inevitable.

This is therefore not a matter of distrust, because you don't need faith or trust to know certain things about the transformative effect this would have on people. They live under mortal threat every second they're outside in uniform. They're going to be monstrous.

Exactly. I've worked for cops (taking care of police orphans/half orphans) for three summers when I was younger.

They're ultimately good guys (well, as good as any random guy is, not worse not better) but their experience of the society turns them into distrustful, clanic semi-sociopaths. The fear of other people reactions is ingrained.

The one that marked me is that they were afraid of local teens chatting up with our teens and learning they were police children, and passed that fear to all kids by saying extremely weird and violent shit they probably believed, but were ultimately lies. They wanted the children, most of them orphans, to avoid talking to regular kids outside of the camp, and lie if they did.

Not bad guys inherently, but clearly fucked up by their job.