The concept was certainly around when I was a kid–“stranger danger” was The Issue of the early 80s. To my mind, the point wasn’t that you needed a way to make stranger pick ups easier, but that it’d be a way for a kid to “test” a liar–even an urgent, convincing one. It’s not common to send strangers to pick up your kid. But I bet that among the set of (very, very rare) stranger abductions, the lie “your mom sent me” is pretty common.
“Free candy” and “Would you like to ride in my windowless van” have proven to be problematic in my experience…
I’ve got young kids and we have a password; hasn’t been needed yet, but we’ve told them they should always ask someone for the password if they are approached without notice and told to go with them. Regular ‘pick you up after school for a playdate’ stuff we discuss in advance so they already know who to expect.
We had one when I was a kid in the 80s. Wish I could remember what it was. I do remember a great story about my brother though! We lived about 3 or 4 blocks from school, and you passed my grandfather’s apartment on the way there. My brother went to a half-day kindergarten, so he and I didn’t walk home together. One day my mom couldn’t pick him up, and sent Papaw to go get him. Little 5 year old was mad that it wasn’t mommy, so screamed and cried the whole walk to the apartment! My Papaw said that he walked several feet behind him, didn’t touch him or try to talk to him, because he was scared to death someone would think he was trying to steal a kid with the fit he was throwing.
First time I ran into it was in 1989 or thereabouts, when I was teaching first grade. The mother said to her son within (my) earshot:
“Now, remember, Ms. Soundso is coming to pick you up today, and it’s fine for you to ask her for the secret word.”
I must have raised my eyebrows or something–Mrs. Soundso would’ve been on the “pre-approved” list of folks-allowed-to-pick-up-your-child-at-any-time that I made all parents fill out at the start of the year*–and the mom colored slightly and said, “I guess you think that’s a little weird? Well, I admit maybe I’m a little paranoid**, but I want my son to be safe, and to be honest he doesn’t really know Mrs. Soundso all that well.” “No problem,” I said, or something to that effect, and Mrs. Soundso did arrive at the end of the day, and showed the proper ID as I did not recognize her, and off they went happily enough. I don’t know whether the boy asked her for the secret word or not, nor did I ever discover what the secret word was. In any case, he was back at school the next day, hale and hearty, so there you go.
So yes, been around a loooong time.
*People not on the list could pick up the kid too, but it required a note from the parent that morning or a phone call once school had started. Mrs. Soundso could waltz in and get him on her own say-so.
**Yes. Yes, irrespective of this incident, she was more than a bit paranoid, at least where her son’s safety was concerned. She was in many ways a loving and caring mom, but control and safety were a big issue for her. When the child was a HS senior I had occasion to talk to him in some detail once (actually I gave him a ride to a funeral where we were both pallbearers, long story) (I still did not know the secret word but I guess by then it was all right). He was in the process of choosing where to go to college and was having terrible trouble because his mom thought his first choice was in an area that was “too dangerous.” The question of course was whether she truly believed it was dangerous or whether this was simply another instance of maintaining control… “People think she’s great,” he said bitterly, “but it’s really hard being her son.”
We were of the free range generation that walked home from school and stayed out until dinner time. Safe or code words were years later.
With my kids, my oldest knows our cell numbers.
The school is too far to walk so we would arraigned something and let their teachers know.
Once in Utah there was a kid with Asperger’s who got lost in the mountains. It took days to find him because he kept hiding from the searchers as they weren’t using the code word.
To add to the chorus, not a new thing at all. It was around when I was in grammar school in the 80s.
But seriously. I grew up in the seventies in a remote rural town in Maine, population about 4,000. Safewords? Yeah right. Most days in the summer I’d leave the house at about eight in the morning wearing nothing but a pair of cut-offs and a towel around my neck, without a cent in my pocket, and my parents wouldn’t even be reminded of my existence again until I wandered home once the street lights went off.
If your school has an official authorized pickup list, then put all of your authorized pickups on the list. We have that at the camps program I work at during the summers, and our signout procedure is by now a well-oiled machine… until Grandma comes by who’s not on the list, and we have to pull her aside, and call the Authorized Telephone Number we have on file to confirm, and hopefully get in touch with the parent, and so on, only to hear “Well, I wasn’t sure if she was going to be picking them up or not, so I didn’t put her on the list”.
When I was a kid, we didn’t use a code word, but our procedure was “If it’s not me or one of your aunts or uncles, or somebody we specifically talked about in advance, it’s not legit”. But on the other hand, as early as fourth grade, my sister and I were both trusted to walk home from school ourselves and latchkey ourselves in (we might have been trusted earlier, except our K-3 school was too far to walk).
Good advice, I just vaguely recall the form only requesting and leaving room for two contacts. I agree, everyone should be listed. I am a sub and not to get off topic, but I know some of the buildings I work in now require that if there’s an early dismissal for whatever reason, and parents aren’t home at that time, the school needs to know where the child is going, grandparents’, neighbors’ house, etc. At least that’s the case for younger children.
I really don’t understand the whole concept of a code word. There were only so many people who might have picked my kids up from anywhere and my kids knew them all - do people really send their coworkers or friends who are unknown to the children to pick them up?
I could almost understand using a code word for a kid to “test” a stranger who says “your mom sent me” but it seems to me it would be easier to tell the kid something like Chronos described. After all, why would my aunt need a code word rather than mom just telling me it’s OK to leave with her? If mom’s giving me a code word that means she might unexpectedly send someone who isn’t included in the list of people she said I can go with.
Back in 2000, my daughters and I visited the FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC. While waiting in line, the TV monitors were playing a PSA that suggested using a “family password”. Same thing, but not as squicky as telling my teen daughters to use a “safe word”.
However, this isn’t just a thing for kids. Since the elderly are a huge target of scammers, I have incorporated the concept as an anti-scam technique. A typical scam is where an elderly person is called on the phone, and, upon answering, the scammer cries hysterically, “Grandpa, it’s ‘Me’ … I’ve been arrested and need $2,500 for bail money. Please don’t tell Mom, she’ll kill me!” Then, when the befuddled man says, “Who? Is this ‘Ashley’?”, the scammer says, “Yes, it’s me, Ashley!”. (Social engineering at its finest.)
Anyway, if someone calls me with the same setup, I will simply ask them to prove it by a simple test. In our family, we have a couple of songs that we have made up, and the grandkids know them. All I have to do is say one line of the song and ask for the next line. If they can’t come up with it, I’m hanging up or calling the cops.
I have also expanded the concept as an “Alzheimer’s Check”. My mom died from complications of Alzheimer’s, and, since it is possibly hereditary, it is something for which I want to be on the lookout. My daughters know have been instructed that when I get older – or, if I start exhibiting really strange behavior – they are supposed to ask me about some obscure thing. In fact, one of the things they are to ask me is the “family password”, which is the one we decided on when we saw the PSA at the FBI HQ.
Interestingly enough, our family password had both a verbal component and an associated hand gesture. (No, not that one. Or THAT one. Get your minds out of the gutter!)
And of course “stranger danger” is a boogeyman. It’s not the weird older guy in the trenchcoat watching the kids from the parkbench. It’s your daughters swimcoach, the sundayschoolteacher, the trusted Uncle- those are the ones you need to watch.
This seemed to be most popular between when I was a kid, and when I had a kid. Probably anybody could have picked me up from school, right down to Jack the Ripper, and I would have been thrilled because it would have been better than the school bus or walking home.
When I did hear about this later, I always imagined that we would have been the kind of family where no one would have remembered the code word properly (if at all).
Now, there’s a whole process at my daughter’s school and a code word wouldn’t come into play.
I remember hearing about this first in the 1990’s or so.
I remember that story. IIRC, he also had Fragile X Syndrome and therefore had a low IQ.
This story really kicked off the “password” thing, in addition to schools not just releasing children to any old person. It produced worldwide headlines, and a book that was published about it in recent years is fascinating, in part because a lot of the ransom money was never found, and people who were involved in the case, and quite likely suspected of dipping their hands in the till, met violent ends themselves.
The book:
I wouldn’t say “bogeyman.” It is something to look out for. Your example is certainly more common, but abductions by strangers and attempted abductions do happen around here often enough.
Apparently it wasn’t an anomaly in the early 1950s or the Greenlease case might not have happened the way it did. 
And if an adult unknown to the child(ren) picked them up, how would they know they were getting the right kids?
I’m guessing that a lot of this is to prevent children from leaving with someone who IS known to them - most likely a relative or a noncustodial parent - and who is not supposed to be around that child.
I don’t think that had anything to do with parents sending people to pick up their kids who their kids didn’t know. I think it had more to do with kids being expected to obey without question - even if their teacher is telling them to leave with a stranger who has convinced the teacher that she is the kids aunt.
I suppose it could be, but in my experience it works better to just tell the kid who they can and cannot leave with. If I don’t want my kids leaving with Uncle Eddie, I don’t want them leaving with him even if he got the codeword from Grandma who was supposed to pick them up but got delayed.And people for whom that is an issue generally tell the school, the baseball coach and everyone else " Don’t let so-and-so pick her up"
Greenlease definitely didn’t kick off the “password” thing - it happened in 1953 and “passwords” didn’t become common until much later although it may be that the kidnapping was the reason schools got more careful about releasing kids.
But the kid that TokyoBayer referred to was a different incident - he got lost while at a Boy Scout camp and wasn’t found for four days. He hid from searchers at least once, because of the “never talk to strangers” thing, although I suppose it’s possible if the strangers had been calling out the code word, he wouldn’t have hidden.