I received a disturbing email today and it reminded me of a thread I had read here on EF regarding school children running around naked in the park. Someone wrote this post and mentioned how she was appauled by this behaviour and mentioned that people with bad intentions would be watching, and many other forum members told her she was being paranoid, and that Switzerland is 'different'.

Well today the school I work at forwarded me some startling information. They received reports from parents 1) that a man in a white van was going around telling children that the school bus was broken and they should come with him 2) someone was telling children that he had ice cream in his car, and he was also taking pictures of them. (don't worry, nothing bad has happened to the children)

What I mean is, of course don't be paranoid, but these things can happen everywhere, even in Switzerland. This is also disturbing because I've seen school children stopping strangers on the streets and asking for bonbons...(I saw this once, but it was still disturbing)

I remember that thread, and I didn't think anyone was suggesting that there are no people with bad intentions in Switzerland. I understood the responses, or at least the ones I saw, to mean that here people don't allow "there might be bad people watching" to stop their kids from being kids.

Of course you're quite right, there are ill-intentioned people in Switzerland like everywhere else, and it's good to be reminded. But I see no reason to assume that kids running around naked in full view of a number of onlookers is going to set those people off, so to speak, more than them finding a kid on its own, fully-clothed, at the playground where it can be easily grabbed. Should all women also cover up completely at all times because there might be rapists around? Presumably not.

UGH! Not again!

Whatever happened to parents drilling their kids with "don't go off with strangers", "don't accept sweets/lifts/offers to go and see some puppies from people you don't know"?

My parents told me this from when I started walking to school on my own so I was well aware from a young age that there were "ill-intentioned" people around. Just drill your kids not to go with strangers and to avoid being caught on their own.

Oddly enough, I remember the "man in a white van with sweets" thing from when I was a kid. How weird is that?

When I was a kid growing up in the 70s we used to play outside unsupervised and parents never wondered where we were or who we were with -- "helicopter parents" were unheard of. But "men in white vans" were still a danger even then and parents taught us about "stranger danger". It's a human hazard that knows no boundaries, political or temporal.

And why is it always a "man" in a white van? Women have committed these crimes too.

I think that equips kids to judge a situation by themselves which, ultimately, makes them less likely to come to grief with some nutcase. Parents who constantly shield their kids from anything remotely threatening, discussing such stuff in hushed tones with oblique references to what goes on are the ones who should be worrying.

Kids need enough knowledge to work it out for themselves but the balance of letting them go and protecting them is pretty hard to achieve (I have to be the first to admit ).

Personally, I have more problems worrying about the dire traffic safety situation around Zurich than the odd nutcase lurking around.

Maybe it's another of these urban legends?

'The Choking Doberman and Other "New" Urban Legends'
by Jan Harold Brunvand

Seems legit:

...and just in case there was an emergency and the children had to be picked up by someone they didn't know, we had a code-word. Without the code-word, no-go, with it, the person must come from Mum or Dad. Come to think of it, it's the only code word I've ever been able to remember after more than a day or two.

Well, yeah. Back in the communist times we had Black Volga. After the Wall collapsed it changed into a white van thanks to American influences.

My parents did this too. Forewarning your kids is a good thing.
This did result in three young girls running away (with the littlest yelling "Bad man! Bad man!") from the shopping store Santa handing out candy though

Here the rumour about a red car is appearing every year. In the last fifteen years the car models changed but not the fact that parents were prepared to swear that something happened. Police was every single time informed, searched and never found a slightes prove. Strangely the rumours start always in late fall and last till Christmas.

And here I was thinking the warning was about some old dude dressed in red hanging out on roofs with reindeer. Turns out it was just the parents lying to their kids again....

Damned mobility users.

I've received a couple of emails from friends about a guy in a white van in the last few days (stopping at bus stops and telling kids they will give them a lift/asking kids if they want ice cream). The areas cited were Meilen and Männedorf, and I guess the bits in between.

I had another conversation with my daughter (six) last night about not getting into cars/talking to strangers etc etc. We had what I thought was a pretty good discussion about it, and then right at the end she comments that people who stop kids and pretend to be nice must be doing it as a joke!

It's hard to get the seriousness of it across without totally freaking kids out and without destroying the confidence they have from being so independent.

Bzzz. Repetition of the word.... er... "kids", Nicholas. (Damn. Didn't realise this was the Just-A-Minute thread. )

That's a brilliant idea. I've been going over stranger danger with my son since September and we have two specific people who he is allowed to go with, and no one else. But this is much better, thanks!

Honestly, I think this is one area where I'm OK if my kids are a bit scared or freaked out - I think a little fear is probably a good thing. But then I have two boys who are dangerously self confident e.g. when we had the stranger discussion my oldest declared that since he was so good at Wii boxing he would just punch the mean guy and run away. Errr, no son, I don't think that's going to work (he's 7). What did work though was telling my kids about Madelaine McCann. Whilst we didn't go overboard I think it helped to get across the seriousness by telling him the actual name of a real girl, the same age as him (she would be anyway, if she were alive).

True true, but in our stories they didn't "collect" kids but shipped folks to Goulags, and it was true. And they were not driven by Jews (whaaaa, I protest) but by state agents ...

Things seem calmer in our area, we had abductions about 2-3 years ago, but no car related stranger danger.