Will anyone help your child? (x-posted)

Admittedly this was in NYC, but it would be very interesting

dejablues...

Well , they said it was suburban New York , but whatever.

but it would be very interesting

to see if anyone stepped up in other places if they saw and
abduction happening. Note the two young men who did finally
help after so many people walked by without doing anything.
We don't have to tackle the abductor, but we should be prepared
to call 911 or do something other than walk away.

bizby40...

This didn't surprise me a bit. You don't think that someone is going
to abduct someone in such a public way, and the man wasn't acting
furtive or concerned about shutting her up. My own child has
screamed, "You're not my mom" or "you're not my dad" when she's angry
at us. She used to claim to be a kidnapped princess.

It's scary I suppose, but I've never particularly harbored the
illusion that my child would be safe if someone really decided to
abduct him or her. I take the precautions I can, and then just hope
and pray that she'll be safe.

Stephanie...

Please someone help me, over and over? Horrifying.

We should all take this as a lesson though -- better to speak up and
look foolish to the cops than not to speak up and have something

bizby40...

Yes, you sure hope you'd be able to tell the difference. Of course,
in this case, the child was not panicked or in fear for her life, and
people may well have picked up on that.

Barbara...

My thoughts, exactly. She wasn't shreiking, just engaging in a
tantrum-like yell. She didn't seem particularly frightened, and while
he was man-handling her, it wasn't in all that over-the-top a way.
Finally, in at least one case, she just seemed to be saying *eh-eh-eh*
(*You're not my father* doesn't do a lot for me -- it sounds like the
battle cry of stepkids!) Honestly, I doubt that I would have
intervened.

Maybe the lesson isn't that people won't intervene, but that we should
teach our kids to yell *Kidnapper!*

(And BTW, unless I'm reading this wrong, it was not NYC. It was a
suburb.)

xkatx...

I watched it with DH beside me, and the first thing I thought is that yes,
although the girl was young, but not too young, she didn't really act out
any fear, and she almost did come across as bratty little girl. The man was
also saying something along the lines of don't go away or something
(honestly can't remember his words, but they weren't along the lines of,
Shut up! Stop struggling! *proceeds to drag her away in a more obvious
way*)
DH and I thought that that the idea and point was definitely there, but I
would like to maybe see something like this done with a child and a man of
different races or something that is less likely to possibly be a dad - like
it would be hard to pass off a young 7ish year old black girl with maybe a
20ish year old white male, for example... And have her actually screaming
help, I don't know this man, someone help, this man is not my father, along
with her maybe struggling a bit with some kicking and actual screaming more
than what she did... Just to maybe make it a bit more obvious, as in the
video, it showed him just walk up to her, her not pay attention to her
surroundings and drag her along, the less screaming might be easier to
believe if he had a moment to talk quietly to her and possibly send out a
threat of, "Come with me now or I will hurt you or your family" or something
like that... He just walked up to her, almost surprised her, and dragged her
away...
But yes, the idea is there, and to be honest, I would probably rather look
silly to the police, the child/'abductor', people on the street, than read
in the news about that same child I had walked past and didn't even ask
questions and read something bad happened.

tragic happen.

Rosalie B....

I've seen the video, and my reaction to it was that had I been there I
might have thought that it wasn't really serious - there wasn't the
note of panic and fear that I would have expected if it had been real.
On the surface it seemed to be a pretty good acting job, but I just
didn't believe it. Possibly the reason that only two YOUNG men
reacted was that they didn't have the experience of children saying
something like "you aren't my daddy" when the person was really her
daddy.

bizby40...

That's kind of what I thought. As a parent who has heard that kind of
thing myself, my first thought was definitely that it looked like a
tantrum. And like I said, I can only hope I'd recognize a real crisis
when I saw it.

toto...

The thing is that what the police and others have taught parents is to
teach their child to scream *you're not my dad* or "you're not my mom*
because this is supposedly going to cause more people to stop and
help than just yelling help or crying.

Nan...

Yes, this is what I taught my ds to yell some 20 years ago. However,
with more and more blended families, those of us that have gotten the
"You're not my mom/dad" tossed out, will tend to wonder if it's a
step-parent.
Frankly, I like the idea of teaching the child to scream "Kidnapper!"
or something that will get more attention from passersby.

I admit that the guy could have played it in a more heavy handed way,
but.... don't you think that a real abductor might try to downplay
this way too? I would rather call the police and have this not be
real than to not just walk by. Also, I think that if a lot of people
did stop, a real abductor might run just because people stopped

bizby40...

I realize that, and it's part of the problem. If you teach kids that
words have power (and there's really no way to avoid that when you're
telling them that saying something in a certain way is important) then
some kids (including one of mine) will then try to use those words of
power against you when they are angry. She did the same thing with
"abuse." Suddenly we were abusing her on a constant basis. We had to
have a very frank talk with her about all the horrible things we
*could* be doing that the law does not consider to be abuse. For
example, the law says we have to feed her. It never says we can't
feed her Brussels sprouts every day.

I don't know how to avoid this with kids like mine. I can *hope* I
could tell the difference between a tincturing kid and a panicked one,
but I don't know for sure.

and were looking at him. If it is the real dad, he will probably not
run and he won't be harmed if the police do come either unless he
is abusing the child to begin with.

Nan...

Well yes, I'd also rather call the police and not have it be real.
But I see kids yelling and tantrumming so often, that I don't think
I'd think to call each and every time, either.

My reaction at this video was more that the little girl didn't seem
very frightened, and a child really being abducted most likely would
be.

Mermaid...

That is true but too often when the police get involved it is harsh and can
be detrimental. There are those incidents where a child who is
developmentally immature will report abuse and it's just not the case and it
sets the ball rolling in a bad way.

I say this because I've heard a few times that foster parents report that a
child in their care will do this. It has caused serious problems for other
children in the home.

Granted it's not the same and I'd rather be safe than sorry but I makes me
very nervous.

grandma Rosalie

Penny Gaines...

I couldn't watch the video (don't have microsoft products on this
computer), but there is another factor to bear in mind: you don't
know how these kinds of things have been edited.

For instance, maybe it started after a long scene where the girl
was interacting with the man, so people ignored the next part. Or
maybe just out of camera shot was a woman talking to the girl - the
picture I saw showed a very small area of pavement.

This is really chilling to watch.

dejablues...

The girl didn't really seem very panicky, and she looked like she was
related to the "abductor, like she had wandered off and he'd just found her
and was angry.

People are just plain hesitant to get into other peoples arguments, for fear
of lawsuits, self-preservation and (what if the guy pulled out a gun?)
"bystander effect" (others will help, so I won't)
and "diffusion of responsibility" (decrease in personal responsibility one
feels in the presence of many others) .

Remember Kitty Genovese? The reaction of the witnesses on this video doesn't
surprise me at all.

Nan...

Yes, pretty scary but not surprising. I've walked past just that type
of situation before, and it's easy to assume it's a child throwing a
tantrum.
However, I stopped and asked the child if it really was his father
and he admitted yes.