Stranger Approaches My Daughter, Gives Her a Present

[jba]

for some reason this reminds me of the NYPD Blue episode where Andy couldn't find a sitter for andy junior, and finally had to agree to let gay john babysit. When gay john came over to his apt he brought a toy fire truck and said "hi andy junior, I brought a present for you but I'm going to give it to your dad because you should never take a present from a stranger". gay john was the man.

[Mr_Moore]

This might be a bit far fetched but your daughter might remember this encounter and your acceptance of it a bit later in life and think that its ok to accept or talk to strangers.
The appearance of the person is not important. Next time, a good round house kick should do the job.

[microbet]

Some people take this way too far. Small children should be with trusted adults 24/7 anyway. They don't need to feel that every stranger is going to try to abduct them.

[Chrisman886]

It's a [censored] in a box!

[Duke]

It seems that a lot of people see the world like a game of Moonwalker, where every single person you run into is either trying to kill you, or trying to kidnap your kid.

Edit: changed the game from Doom to Moonwalker, which was more appropriate.

[daryn]

wow moonwalker. awesome

[Anacardo]

I also conceive of the world as being peppered with bonus monkeys that will change me into a laser-toting robot. Strange but true!

[Boris]

Definitely weird but I think you handled it the right way. I think it would have weirded me out and made me super paranoid if my parents acted scared and aggressive towards strangers.

When she is old enough to walk around outside w/o responsible adult you can have the don't talk to strangers conversation.

[Papa Perry]

It is never too early to demonstrate to your children that they should not talk to strangers or take gifts from them. A 2 year old child is more aware than most people know.

A simple statement such as, "We don't accept gifts from strangers" and then give the item back will work and not cause any undue harm to the child.

I know, I have done this with my children (now 18 & 14).

Your lack of action will stick in the childs mind more than anything you may say to them.

[bisonbison]

%25 turn out to be family members
58,000 are non family member abductions.

The first number is way off. The 2nd is just incredibly misleading.

Less than 20% of abductions reported to the police are non-family.

As for the 58k abductions - Only 12k/year are ever reported to police. But if we just stick with the 58k only 19% involve children < 12 years old. And only ~45% of the abductors are strangers or slight acquaintances.

So you quickly get from 58k to 5k young kids being abducted by strangers every year. That still sucks and is, I'm sure, capable of terrifying, but that means that 14 times per day in the US, this happens:

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>Nonfamily abduction: (1) An episode in which a
nonfamily perpetrator takes a child by the use of
physical force or threat of bodily harm or detains
the child for a substantial period of time (at least
1 hour) in an isolated place by the use of physical
force or threat of bodily harm without lawful authority
or parental permission, or (2) an episode in
which a child younger than 15 or mentally incompetent,
and without lawful authority or parental permission,
is taken or detained or voluntarily accompanies
a nonfamily perpetrator who conceals the
child’s whereabouts, demands ransom, or expresses
the intention to keep the child permanently.</pre><hr />

It's worth preparing your kid for. It's not worth changing your life around.