Not quite the same, but..
A friend of ours - he would have been about forty at the time - took his twin daughters - they were about six or seven - to the beach where they ran about to their hearts' content, but always within sight, Then Ernie saw them run up to some aged chap who was wandering along about fifty yards away and as he watched Ernie saw them suddenly turn about and run away from the man then, seeing their dad, dashed back. Thinking that the aged man was some sort of problem waiting to happen, Ernie demanded of the girls what had happened.
"We thought is was you daddy!"
Mike