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Such is the fear of being suspected of being a child abuser that many adults say they are changing their normal, appropriate behaviour and avoiding contact with unrelated children. The fact that abusive people exploit ordinary situations to abuse children should not cause non-abusive people to change their behaviour.
Child molesters do not normally offend in public. They use public situations to form a relationship with a child that they can develop and exploit in secret. If your motive is healthy and your conduct is open there is little risk that your behaviour will arouse suspicion.
Children will fall over and they will get lost. They need trustworthy adults who will pick them up and return them to safety. As long as it is done openly, without over-familiar touching and by involving other adults where possible, isn't it better to help a child than leave them to fend for themselves?
Worry about the safety of someone else's child
When it is someone else's child that is thought to be at risk of harm, adults often feel inhibited in acting. They fear they may have got it wrong; they assume someone else will have the same worry and will act, so they don't need to; they are worried it will damage relations with the child's parent or the suspected abuser. Whatever the reason, the question that needs to be asked is, what would you like someone else to do if it was your child they were worried about?
A worried adult in this situation needs informed and impartial advice and the best sources of such advice would be the specialist police child protection team or social services child protection team. People close to the child are likely to have too little knowledge of child abuse or be too affected by misplaced loyalties to give useful advice. Adults need to remind themselves that if the situation for the child seems worrying then there is a reason for that, and it needs to be carefully considered by people who know what they are doing.
© Charles Fortt 2007
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