What is the common verb that expresses a person tries to convince children to follow them or do something bad?

Question

My daughter is about 7 and I want to train her to take the public bus to school (not a school bus because the school doesn't have a school bus) by herself. But the problem is that I am afraid some bad people might convince her to follow them or do dodgy things like doing drugs or joining a gang.

The common phrase is "do not talk to strangers".

But I want to make it clearer why not to talk to strangers.

What is the common verb that expresses a person tries to convince children to follow them or do something bad?

For example, "do not talk to strangers as they might tempt/entice/lure... you into doing bad things or kidnap you"

Answer 1

In the U.S. we refer to people who do bad things to children as predators. The term is also used to refer to anyone who takes advantage of someone weaker or more desperate than themselves.

So you might say, Don't talk to strangers. They could be predators.

You could use the verb prey but the noun predator is the more common way to refer to predators. Of course, as Fumble Fingers points out, the follow-up question from the child will probably be, What's a predator, Mommy? Good luck with all that.