Hah, I'll take 'rationalist type' any day! And I don't mind laissez faire ("a policy or attitude of letting things take their own course, without interfering") much either.
My example revolved around strangers because that was the general topic. Strangers in the form of meddling, hyper-protective adults. True blue 'stranger danger' is, as you say, extremely rare.
Our son has almost always been very deliberate in action, especially with respect to his own safety.
So, the only real situation we had to guard against was the possibility of other adults freaking out that he was alone at the age of 9.
Regarding your hypothetical: as noted elsewhere, 3 years is very young. To be more illustrative, I'll disregard the specifics you mentioned, because our actual decision in such a situation would depend on so many more considerations.
My general approach would be to ensure the child is safe while minimizing my own exposure to possible unforeseen repercussions.
If the child was physically ok, I would tend toward relatively low-grade engagement. If she wandered off, I'd probably follow at a distance as long as needed.
The guiding principle is minimal intervention/interference with a baseline of protecting the child from environmental/possible human dangers.
If people arrived or she went toward people that posed a possible danger, than I would not hesitate to involve the authorities, because that is clearly moving toward an 'emergency' threshold.
These are conceptual guidelines, which might all go out the window depending on the actual specifics of a situation as I saw it.
My example revolved around strangers because that was the general topic. Strangers in the form of meddling, hyper-protective adults. True blue 'stranger danger' is, as you say, extremely rare.
Our son has almost always been very deliberate in action, especially with respect to his own safety.
So, the only real situation we had to guard against was the possibility of other adults freaking out that he was alone at the age of 9.
Regarding your hypothetical: as noted elsewhere, 3 years is very young. To be more illustrative, I'll disregard the specifics you mentioned, because our actual decision in such a situation would depend on so many more considerations.
My general approach would be to ensure the child is safe while minimizing my own exposure to possible unforeseen repercussions.
If the child was physically ok, I would tend toward relatively low-grade engagement. If she wandered off, I'd probably follow at a distance as long as needed.
The guiding principle is minimal intervention/interference with a baseline of protecting the child from environmental/possible human dangers.
If people arrived or she went toward people that posed a possible danger, than I would not hesitate to involve the authorities, because that is clearly moving toward an 'emergency' threshold.
These are conceptual guidelines, which might all go out the window depending on the actual specifics of a situation as I saw it.