I think it’s not just that.

For instance 20 years ago there was public phone booths everywhere. A kid would just need a few coins and the house number to do a call, now you’d need a cell phone, and giving one to a 5~8 year kid is still not practical.

Or I remember shopping at local shops enough to know their faces and names, or ask shop owner if the other kids where nearby. I don’t think my kid knows anyone other than the bakery people, because local shops have nothing for him at this point.

Same with police or church member perception, I think our generation is less OK to just say to a kid “if there’s any problem just trust the police”. It becomes a weird and complex message of what the institution’s goal is, what’s OK and not OK for them to do, what’s the warning signs, what to do in case stuff gets weird etc.

TL;DR: A lot of stuff changed in the last decades, we can’t just blindly do the same as before.

> TL;DR: A lot of stuff changed in the last decades, we can’t just blindly do the same as before.

When I was kid, I would get on my bike and wander too far. One time I was out and a thunderstorm came along. A nice lady invited me into her house to call home.

Fast forward to university, a professor objected to me closing his office door with just the 2 of us in there (we're both male and I'm 6ft 200lbs). A colleague of his was falsely accused of being inappropriate to a student, so his policy is to keep the door open.

The change in trust levels has changed pretty swiftly.

> The change in trust levels has changed pretty swiftly.

I'm of two minds about this.

1) This is a bad thing in that we don't give respect to authority that it really deserves. And that's quite often a bad thing--especially when related to children and teaching. Sorry to break it to you, Mommy, but your little angel is actually a spoiled, shitty little brat and, no, his opinions don't count.

2) This is a good thing in that people in positions of authority who abuse their power over others are not uncommon. Having greater scrutiny helps cut down on these situations. Apparently most women have dealt with a couple of these people as teachers throughout high school and college.

I really don't know how to reconcile these two.

There’s also a difference between interactions & power dynamics in a neighborhood setting with a young kid and a college with an adult student.

So to be totally fair - not exactly similar situations

> Same with police or church member perception, I think our generation is less OK to just say to a kid “if there’s any problem just trust the police”.

I'd go further. We need to get back to: "If you have a problem, pick an adult and ask for help." Really. Most threats to children are people they know. Random strangers are almost always helpful in a situation.

> now you’d need a cell phone, and giving one to a 5~8 year kid is still not practical.

I'm not sure about that; there are phones specifically designed for that market (e.g., Firefly), after all.

There are, but it comes with the baggage of contracting an additional phone line, and more importantly having it charged at all times and on the kid.

Even just the risk of breaking, losing or getting it stolen is not negligeable.

It’s a viable option depending on the kid and the environment , I just feel kids phone are still too clunky to be worth it. I’d prefer to go straight for a regular smartphone once the kid is big enough to properly take care of it.

There are still shops everywhere, who will let a child use a phone.

Or teach the child to approach a stranger; a random stranger is very unlikely to be a threat. (A less random one even better: a woman with young children.)

Not trusting the police for problems a child is likely to encounter seems paranoid.

> a woman with young children.

because she's already at her quota of kidnapped kids for the day?

You might be surprised by the number of 5-8 year olds with cell phones. And I fully expect smart watches to eventually end up on the wrist of every single kid that spends significant time away from their parents.

smart watches are peripherals, not communications devices, right? you still need a phone to make your smart watch communicate

At this point Apple ships an LTE connected smart watch. Android OEMs have done so for a few years at this point. So I think all that remains is for costs to come down, battery life to improve, and the social acceptance thing to play out. I think smart parents will be giving their kids smartwatches instead of phones in a couple of years (smarter parents will not give their kids either, but I digress...).

> smart watches are peripherals, not communications devices, right?

The most popular ones in the US are, but ones that are fully independent phones with their own SIM have been available for some time.

Just for some examples: https://www.smartgeekwrist.com/standalone-smartwatch-sim-car...

Most 5-8 year olds I personally know have cell phones.

I'm not afraid of roving child snatchers. I'm afraid of all the cars that might accidentally run over a kid.

Right, cars just go too fast in residential neighborhoods. And the neighborhoods these days are built to encourage speeding. (wide, long stretches without stop signs, etc)

This is the real reason I do not like kids wandering by themselves. Cars these days are way too fast and drivers are way too distracted texting or taking selfies or whatever and it is very easy to run over a kid who just happens to wander onto the road at exactly the wrong time. Even worse once all cars are silent and electric.

> Cars these days are way too fast

Compared to the Ford Model T, maybe.

No way, plot a graph of average horsepower and top speeds over time and you'll see it going up and to the right.

If your point was that children should not wander along highways and race tracks I agree.

Your average driver drives way, way too fast on your average residential street and especially parking lots. I've noticed an uptick in the amount of times I've been illegally passed on residential streets in the last 10 years. My street is only around five-six small lot houses long and I'm almost impressed with how fast people manage to drive on it.

Of course, I'm not sure that it has much to do with the speed of the car they are driving.

I mean, it could be that child abduction is falling because the media warns parents and they all keep better watch of their children.

It could be, though it was falling for a couple decades before the media attention started driving the widespread belief that it was increasing, and the behavior changed that resulted from that belief.

There's also the fact that children are typically hurt by people they know, not strangers

Again, its hard to separate that phenomenon from potentially confounding effects. Is the fact that children are typically hurt by people they know the result of parents being reluctant to let their kids out on the street by themselves, thereby limiting the opportunities for potential strangers to harm them?

Again, the effect precedes the behavior change, so is unlikely to be a result of it.