by I have always seen myself as a careful, attentive mother. The fact that I lost not only one but two of my three daughters in public locations is amazing. And I don’t speak for five minutes.
The first daughter, then three, disappeared at a festival for a terrible half an hour – long enough so that I was directed in tears in tears and there is an announcement “missing child” on stage.
The second daughter disappeared on vacation for 20 minutes, while a group of 10 of us explored the streets of Broadstairs, Kent – this time I was so hectic that I called the police.
How about everything in the world did it happen? And what can other parents learn from my mistakes?
The first time I lost one of my children, I was at a local festival where I visited with my husband and our two daughters, who was then six and three years old. We met friends who also had small children and all maintained while a band played on stage. My youngest daughter was right next to me and held onto my leg. Or so I thought.
A few minutes later I looked down and realized my horror that the child who clung to my leg was not my own daughter. It was a friend’s son, which meant that my daughter was missing.
Lost at a festival
Staying calm in a crisis is always a good idea, but when your child has disappeared, it goes out of the window. Unfortunately my husband came home a few minutes ago to get our car if the girls were later too tired to go home.
I scanned this with thousands of people packed by people and had a marked knowledge: “My daughter could be somewhere.”
For fear of the worst, every top -class kidnapping came to my mind. First I ran into random strangers and asked as many as possible if they had seen a little girl in a light pink dress and were hit with a stream of sympathetic noes.
I scanned this with thousands of people packed by people and had a marked knowledge: “My daughter could be somewhere.”
About 10 minutes later I hurried to the first aid tent to get advice. I could see that the two employees themselves panicked, a little unsure of the intervention. They decided that an announcement on the stage would be a good idea, and at a surreal moment, the music stopped and a complex seemed to ask the audience to look for this “missing child”. They also decided to alert the police.
After calling my husband in tears, he was busy searching the streets for her. Finally, 20 minutes later, he saw our little girl, who hiked alone next to the festival around a parking lot and looked amazed. He stopped the car in the middle of the street, jumped out and grabbed it.
When he called me with the good news, I ran to her and hugged my daughter the closest that I have ever hugged in my life.
I hugged my daughter so closely that I ever hugged her in my life.
Lost on vacation
Although this fateful day is etched in my memory forever, it was not the last time I lost a child. It happened incredibly again when my third daughter Belle*was four years old.
This time we were on vacation with another family and since then I have found that they can feel a misleading feeling of common responsibility in a group.
Each family had three children and Belle went with the two oldest sons of the other family at the age of nine and 11 years old.
I assumed that they took care of them, but in retrospect nothing was verbally agreed and they were too young for this responsibility anyway.
What happened next was completely avoidable.
If you are in a group, you can feel a misleading feeling of common responsibility.
We reached a little bit green and only then did I realize that my daughter was not there. “Did you see where it went?” I asked the boys desperately, but both had no idea. The adults quickly separated and shot in different directions to look for her.
The most frightening was the huge drop on a low wall next to the beach. I remember that I looked over the edge and pounded my heart. I called the police and was too hectic to take care of how bad it sounded that I had lost my daughter.
I called the police and was too hectic to take care of how bad it sounded that I had lost my daughter.
Then, suddenly in the distance, 20 minutes later, my partner came up to me to keep our little girl. A woman had walked her herself, looked up and stayed with her until my partner appeared.
The police appeared embarrassingly and gave my daughter a gentle talk and told her she should never go away.
My advice to other parents
1. Don’t let yourself be distracted. If I had not been deepened in conversations, I would of course have noticed that the child who held on my leg was not mine.
2. Write your number in the arm. Festivals are one of the most risky places in which you are with your child, but if I wrote my number on my daughter’s arm, there is a high chance that someone would have called me immediately if I recognized a three -year -old alone.
3. Make sure you have told you that you should never migrate. After we found my daughter, I was so relieved that I didn’t tell her immediately and I remember that another friend said astonishment: “What? You didn’t tell her that she shouldn’t do it again?”
I asked for an explanation and she said she thought “Daddy”, but she had not said none of us what she was doing. Only then did I realize that I did not believe that I had emphasized enough how important it is to never wander away.
4. Never assume that someone else takes care of your child, especially other children. In retrospect, the boys were too young to watch my daughter. According to the NSPCC, if you hire a babysitter under the age of 16, you are too young to be legally responsible if your child has done damage. Even if they are not there, they still have full responsibility.
5. Don’t let yourself be in a large group that you weigh in a wrong feeling of security. On vacation with other families it is common for the parents to take care of the children of the other, but I have found that they have to agree orally who takes care of whom so that everyone knows exactly who they are responsible for.
6. Pover them to protect them. Now my daughters are older, Airtags have become more common. You can get your child to wear one on a bracelet, necklace or backpack. For teenagers with your own phone you also save hours of worry when you save apps such as finds and googlemaps for the release of finds and googlemaps. Of course, you should always tell your children whether they are pursuing them – the only fight could make them agree.
*Names have been changed to protect identities.
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