One thing I try to always do is smile and/or wave at babies/young children if they make eye contact with you. In a world where there is a lot of negativity being broadcast on the news 24/7 and click bait headlines, it is good to instill a sense of happiness in the youth of today by being friendly. Walking places a lot of people are distracted by their phones and hardly make eye contact anymore of if they do they make…
...just wait until their parents report you to the police for "smiling at kids"
It was a way of selling newspapers.
So now you have to have kids of your own in proximity or grandchildren in proximity to be part of the club of people allowed to speak with a child. Failing that you need a full criminal records check.
During my own childhood I was out and about all hours of day and night delivering newspapers, babysitting, doing gardening jobs, walking/cycling/hitching to get to places generally alone. We didn't have the 'p' word back then and a certain amount of being sensible was expected. Not so long ago I had a chat with my sister about who had an un-natural interest in our childhood selves in the village and neighbouring area. The list was quite a long one, my sister being exposed to by people I considered normal and vice-versa.
We even had Fred West - a notorious murderer - parked up in his van at a local spot. Being lured in to a house or a strange car was just one of those things to watch out for, plus people would give you strange gifts.
But the thing was that we - my sister and myself - were the local community. If anything did happen to us then you could guarantee that someone would call our mum to complain they had not had their paper delivered, or someone would see us enter a house to not exit. For us it would be impossible for us to travel anywhere without being observed. Hitch-hiking was also something we did, but when you know half the cars on the road then you expect a lift.
We actually interacted with the crazies fully knowing that there wasn't something quite right about them. We also told our mum about unwanted advances and strange gifts that came our way. Our mother never got the police involved. In our recent recollections there were a dozen or so where a line had been crossed or other evidence existed. Would the community have been better had there been court cases? Not really, common sense by us and the fact that it was a community worked.
Had the moral panic existed then and had we been locked away lest we meet someone that smiled at kids then we would have also lost out from the kind grown-ups that went the extra mile for us. We could get lifts into town, every school history project was done with the help of some local senior citizen, to earn money we had to do no more than walk out the door and, for every weird person there were a dozen that would be looking out for us.