3 ms·
It puts neighbors in a bad situation. Yesterday there was a kid, probably about eight years old, outside my house wandering around by himself, yelling at passin
by Mountain_Skies 4y ago
It puts neighbors in a bad situation. Yesterday there was a kid, probably about eight years old, outside my house wandering around by himself, yelling at passing cars. There are lots of kids in my neighborhood and I'm accustomed to them being loud when they're out playing but this kid was alone, going out into the road, and just acting a bit weird. It wasn't a kid I knew so I couldn't call the parents but calling the police also seemed like a questionable thing to do. I'm near a speed bump so cars generally go slow through here but there are other parts of the street when they often have more speed. I didn't want to approach him (all manner of trouble can come from an adult approaching a child they don't know), police seemed like overkill, but being out in the road, especially since he was walking away from the speed bump area, seemed potentially dangerous. Eventually he went into a house across the street five or six houses down which recently sold so probably is a new family to the neighborhood.
Still not sure what I should have done if he hadn't gone home or really if this is a problem waiting to happen. At his age I wandered much further from home and put myself in worse potential danger at times, though I probably never yelled at passing cars. No one ever called the police on me though there were a few times when an adult told me to stop doing whatever I was up to or go somewhere else.
- SuperQue 4y agoUgh, speedbumps are so dangerous. Sure, they make you slow down for them. But drivers now want to "make up" for that slow down. So they drive even faster between them.
- pdonis 4y ago> Still not sure what I should have done If you don't know which house the kid belongs in, the first thing I would do is to find out. Start knocking on doors and asking if it's their kid. Now that you do know, the obvious thing to do is to introduce yourself to the neighbors and describe what their kid was doing. They're new to the neighborhood so you can pitch it as letting them know that there are a lot of passing cars at that point and kids should be aware of the danger.
- richx 4y agoWhy didn’t you just ask the kid what it is doing and where it is living?
- HarryHirsch 4y agoIn America that will immediately identify you as a childlifter. Next thing that happens, you'll have to deal with the cops and the court system.
- mhb 4y ago
- rootusrootus 4y agoPerhaps OP is a man. I wouldn't approach a strange child outside my house, either, unless they were on my property doing something destructive. Better to let my wife handle such situations.
- hn_user2 4y agoWeird time to be alive when we are afraid to get within 10 feet of a kid a yell "HEY KID, GET OUT OF THE ROAD!". And yet, totally understand.
- agentwiggles 4y agoNot too long ago, my son was riding his bike down the street (which he's not supposed to do, he's supposed to stay on the sidewalk). A driver yelled at him, something fairly vulgar like "get out of the fucking road, asshole!" He came home and reported this to me. I was more gentle obviously, and told him that the guy wasn't very nice for swearing at him. But honestly, I don't blame the guy, and I'm happy he yelled at him. I'm sure he'll remember that incident next time he's cruising down the middle of the road.
- pdonis 4y ago> all manner of trouble can come from an adult approaching a child they don't know If you do it by yourself. But you can always try to recruit another adult--a neighbor you know, for example. Having an independent witness makes a big difference.
- patorjk 4y agoIt sounds like you did the right thing, you were concerned and kept an eye on things. Calling the police would have been overkill and maybe wrecked this kids' family life (like what happened in the article). Other than that, I see no problem with approaching the kid and saying something like "hey, you can get hurt playing in the street, please take this to your backyard", or something like that. As long as you don't try and start a conversation it's not going to be weird. If you have a kid he may even know who you are already. All of the kids in my neighborhood know me as "Edward's dad", even though I wouldn't be able to pick most of them out of a lineup.