Moms Fed Up with School 'Stranger Danger' Paranoia

Mention this trend to any
friend with school age kids and most will likely say they have seen
it: A note from the school warning parents and children that there
was a car, a stranger, or—worst of all—a van spotted
near the bus stop. A reader, Kate, sent me a message about the note
her son’s school sent home with him. Kate lives in Canada, but the
trend is strong in the U.S., too:

Today’s alert was to let us know that the police were contacted
“regarding a suspicious motor vehicle seen between 8:15 and
8:30 AM” near one of the schools this morning, a “white work van
with an orange flashing style light on top that was not operative”
operated by “a male approx. 50-60 years of age with a full white
beard and wearing an orange construction style shirt and ball style
hat.”

Of course, there isn’t enough detail included to explain what on
earth is so suspicious about a work van driven by a workman in a
small Canadian town on a Wednesday morning. Instead there are
tips about setting up ‘code words’ with parents and kids and never
going into strange places out of public view. 

These notes are not benign. By adding to the belief that our
kids are in constant danger the minute they leave the house, they
make it seem too risky to send kids outside unsupervised. That’s
how we end up with cops collaring moms who let their
kids walk
to the park or play
outside. It is equated with negligence. After all, there was an
unfamiliar car in the neighborhood! Here’s the rest of Kate’s
letter about the note:

The local schools have this ‘partnership’ program with the local
police where a notice is sent home with the schoolkids whenever the
police receive a complaint that touches on a threat to one of the
schools or to schoolkids. Mostly, what this means is that we get to
hear about it every single time a kid reports that someone made
them uncomfortable on their walk home and every time a local
resident sees a ‘suspicious’ vehicle near one of the schools.

Last year, I rolled my eyes at these notices and filed them in
my recycling bin. But this year, I’m
fed up. I’m fed up with hearing my kids and their friends talk
about how strangers could have weapons or want to grab kids. I’m
fed up with trying to explain to my neighbors why there’s no danger
at all to my 9-year-old son to bike the 1.2 km to his school—and
that it won’t be any more dangerous for
their daughters to walk or bike the same
distance at the same age.

It’s hard enough to raise Free-Range Kids in a paranoid world
without the school and police adding fuel to the fire…. So, I’m
going to write to my kids’ principal and the local police chief to
ask whether it is really necessary to send reports home about every
unsubstantiated complaint, considering these negative effects on
the school community.

If they do feel it is necessary to send these reports, I want to
insist that they include follow-up reports so that the community
can see how many of these complaints are unsubstantiated or
substantiated. I’d like to include statistics to reinforce the true
likelihood of abduction or assault so I can compare the costs of
this policy against the putative benefits.

Help me shed some sanity!

Let’s all help. Let’s follow Kate’s lead and ask the local cops
and schools to report when the suspicious man or van turns out to
be absolutely nothing more than—surprise—a perfectly harmless man
or van. And let’s ask school principals why they feel compelled to
spread fear based on nothing more than Spidey sense.