Unattended young kids in car - would you have done anything?

j.e.j.

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

what if you'd decided to get out and were hit by a car!

This exact thing happened to a childhood friend of mine. I suppose she would have been about 4 or 5 at the time. This was back in the 70s, in the days before childlocks, etc. Her dad went into a shop to get something and left her on her own in the car. She decided to get out of the car and she crossed the road, and got run over

But you can torture yourself with 'what ifs' can't you.. You can never be 100% sure something untoward is not going to happen. You can only take reasonable precautions.

pinkladyof66

If I am popping out to post office to send parcel, getting petrol or just popping to tesco express i leave my 4 year old strapped in his seating playing. Literally only max of 5 mins.

pollypenny

I had a similar experience some years ago, before we all carried mobiles.

I parked in town, only to have a large man almost dive at me. He pointed to a parked mini and explained that a little girl in it had told him that she needed a wee and that she didn't know where her mummy was.

Poor bloke was terrified of being accused of something.

The car doors were locked so I told the child that I'd go into the shop and look for her mum. A message was given over the tannoy, but she didn't appear.

I waited in the car park, trying reassure the girl for abou 15 mins. When mother arrived she didn't see that she'd done anything wrong.

pulliptears

persa wrote: »

That's a cautionary tale if ever I heard one... Thanks for sharing, it genuinely hadn't occurred to me.

It never occurred to me either until it happened and I'd left her a couple of times thinking she was old enough to be fine.

I'll never forget just how upset she was though, she struggled to tell me what had happened she was so distraught. I don't know what she thought was happening or what was going through her mind at the time but she really was upset. I felt so guilty for weeks after

thunderbird

Couldn't the parent have been getting a trolley? I'm not sure how you would manage to carry 2 babies and hold hands with a toddler to get to a trolley.

bright_side

When I was about 7 my 'grandfather' used to leave me in his car with a bottle of coke and bag of crisps while he popped in the pub for a pint on Saturday nights - I used to be completely terrified but never dared say anything

My take on leaving little ones on the car is that you just don't do it!! I know chances of anything happening can be slim, but they're still chances you don't take. Besides the risk of something happening to them, what about if something happened to the parent and they couldn't get back to the car?? Again, chance maybe slim, but you just never know.

gregg1

phill99 wrote: »

As a nation we are now obsessed, almost to a level of dangerous paranoia, about children being abducted. In reality however, abduction bay stranger is, thankfully a very rare thing and is why when it happens, it is so news worthy and gains so much media overage.

If a test was set to name all children abducted by a stranger in the last decade, most of us could name a few. And many could probably name all of them. But it is no more than half a dozen cases. It is a very rare crime.

Most children who are abducted are abducted by someone known to them.

While I'm not suggesting the parent (or guardian) was right to leave children unattended, we just need to put the whole thing into perspective and take a reality check.

I disagree. It is a parent's responsibility to minimise any risks. Leaving youngsters in a car like that IS a risk to be avoided. I would NEVER leave my kids in a car if I were not with them, even if it were to pay for petrol. And surprise, surprise, my kids have grown up to be well adjusted young adults who are not tied to our apron strings!

michelle2008

DKLS wrote: »

At what point did parents become so soft? Cotton wool sales must be through the roof.

Growing up there was many occasion I was left in the car usually with pop n crisps and told I could play with the gears but not the handbrake, surprising despite this huge amount of risk I survived to adulthood.

There was a dreadful case a number of years ago near me when a car caught fire with two small children inside. One tragically died. They were alone in a car park.

It sounds like you were much older than these children if you understood not to touch the brake. Don't be so quick to judge others parenting - there was only a
very small risk to you, but arguably no benefit. I would bring the kids into the shop with me.

I have also just remembered being in a parked car that was hit by another car (who was travelling at about 30 miles an hour). My mum was in the car with me and I suffered very minor injuries. But if I had been alone I would have been completely terrified

motherofstudents

I think these kids were too young to be left. Not because of possible abduction but just if they got scared, or needed something. I saw this in Tesco's car park once and someone had told the store who had two employees standing by the car. The car with a baby of about 8 months had been left for about 20 minutes according to another shopper so the tesco employee rang the police.
I was left with my brother and two cousins in a car on several occasions while my grandad and uncle went in the pub. Luckily we didn't come to any harm, although had a few near misses.

FBaby

I would have given the mother the benefit of the doubt, being inexperimented and not overly confident that she was doing the right thing, but did it out of desperation and exhaustion. I would have waited next to the car until her return and then as non accusingly as possible would have said that most people would be very concerned by her actions and would probably have reported her. Hopefully her reaction would have been that she realised in the store that she shouldn't have done it and wouldn't do it again...