I agree, it's a good thing to teach kids to yell, " Help! This isn't my daddy!" and pitch a fit if someone tries to lead them off from a supermarket, that's absolutely what that kind of training works for - a public, crowded environment where an abductor is trying to be covert and lead or carry a quiet child away without attracting attention.
But in the end, when a predator gets a child alone and under their control, politeness or resistance doesn't matter, because they have all of the power and can physically dominate a child whatever their degree of resistance.
A punch or two to the face can stun a grown adult, a child can be completely incapacitated by it. And being taught to yell and bite at that moment isn't helpful.
In the grocery store, yes. Yell, bite, announce loudly that you don't know the attacker, that they're hurting you.
But Athena wasn't in a public place, surrounded by potential rescuers. She was in her own driveway, alone, when a monster snatched her before she even knew what was happening. And by then, it was all over, even though it had only begun.
As I said, child protection is important, but equally, it is utterly useless to apply it to situations and predators like we see in this case. It's like a terrible bolt of lightning from a clear sky. All the small and large circumstances in both their lives leading to that moment. If anything had changed, she might have been fine, still alive. But another little girl probably wouldn't be. He was always going to take a child. It was just chance that everything converged and it was Athena.
MOO
