Off duty police officer, town centre staff and sainsburys workers

Savvy_Sue

eml wrote:

Luckily, we had taught her to find a policeman, a shop worker or failing that, a mummy with a pram if she was lost and she knew her full name. She had immediately told a shop assistant she was lost and what her mummy was called.

Yup, gave my sons the same advice, and jolly glad I was too when we lost one of them outdoors when he was about 7! He thought we'd left the area and was heading back to the car, I hadn't seen him go and last I'd seen he was climbing down a fairly steep woody stretch to the river, youngest was helpfully saying "Perhaps he's drowned". Dog walkers and canal boaters were all immensely helpful. He meanwhile had found a mummy with children, who'd found a phone box and called the police, and waited with him for police to arrive. Police asked where he'd last seen me, took him back there and behold, there I was!

Youngest was VERY envious that he'd had a ride in a police car, but I told him not to even think about, because his brother had been too upset to enjoy it!

So the advice I gave my sons, as taken from a leaflet we were given at nursery:

If you lose your mummy,

1. Stay where you are: don't keep wandering further and further away. I will come and find you.

2. If you're worried or upset, the people you can talk to are a police man (or woman) in their uniform, someone working in a shop, or another mummy (or daddy) with children.

If we were out for the day with a group of other kids, I would run through this for them as well. AND make a note of what they were wearing! How embarrassing to be asked to describe a missing child and not really have a clue! At Legoland and places like that I would point out what the staff were wearing and encourage them to go to one of them if lost.

ethansmum

I'm glad this story (and everyone elses) had a happy ending- and thanks for all the great advice on what to teach the kids.

ditzymuppet

Lyndsay_21 wrote:

thanks for all the replies i feel much better now i'm just thankful of how quickly everyone jumped into gear and so thankful that it was a police officer who found her not some wierdo. i am going to get some thankyou cards one for sainsburys staff one for the security team and take one into the police station and see if they can pass it on to the police officer who found her.

:T I was just going to suggest that you dropped them a thank you note. Not enough people say thank you nowadays, it'll really make their day

glad it was a happy ending

~ditzy x

Turning_into_scrooge

........and our Police officers get knocked left right and centre, the poor guys can't do right from wrong. It's good to hear someone praising them and well done to Sainsbuy's for acting so quickly. I'm please everything worked out for you in the end something similar happened to me years ago with my son, absolutely terrifying.

Moneyfornothing_2

I'm glad it all turned OK. I had a similar experience earlier this year, the thoughts that go through your head at the time are unbelievable. It still upsets me even now to think about it. She was only 'missing' for around 5 minutes but it seemed like hours.
Unfortunately our society today always seems to think the worse of people which is what make most people turn a 'blind eye'.

RACHIE77

I'm a bit all over the shop at the moment and have been sat here with tears rolling down my cheeks whilst reading this, my heart was in my mouth with every story I read and of course in my memory the sad story of the little Jamie Bulgar boy who was in a shopping centre with his mum...

It happens so quickly, one minute they are there, the next minute they are gone. This happened to me when I was on holiday in Majorca last year, my 20 month boy was playing nearby where we were sat one evening with his 7 year old brother and we could see them just running round with the other kids. It wasn't until later that I realised at one point that the little blonde haired boy I had last spotted playing with him was another toddler who had joined the children, (I had just seen the back of his head stood next to his brother and assumed it was still him!) just as my little one had ran off.... A moment of two later the 7 year old came over to say that he had been looking for ages and couldn't find his brother... I began running round and round and round and has screaming and hysterical as I realised he had been missing for some time. The complex we were on was big with open gates to a road and swimming pools and lakes in the vicinity without gates to protect a child from falling in them... It was the WORST ten/fifteen/twenty minutes of my life (no idea how long!)... it really was...

He was found up near the stage in another part of the complex and they made an announcement 'has anyone lost a little boy' as I burst out crying and ran for him....

He can't speak yet so I'm actually very very paranoid of him being out of my sight for even a few seconds.... I'm actually worrying as I am sat here as I am at work and he is being looked after... Its a real irrational fear that I have now, has anyone else felt these types of anxiety??

I will teach him all he needs to know when he can understand a bit more but in the meantime I will superglue him by my side as recommended in an earlier post! Well, maybe not superglue but a short bit of rope...

fubar_2

Shopping centres and alike need to implement the same law they use in some states in the USA, if a child is missing they do a lock down, no-one allowed in no-one allowed out, to my knowledge no-one has ever complained when this has been implemented.

I understand that there is a Mall in one state where the parents can request a tracker the parent & child wears and that child and parent are tracked from the time they enter the mall to the time they leave, and the parent carries a receiver that bleeps if the child is more than 20ft away from the parent, if the child or parent starts to leave the mall without one or the other then alarms are sounded and the doors are automatically locked down.

Best system I have heard of yet.

elisebutt65

Mine left the house when I was on the loo and were brought back by the police about 4 hours later!!!

Eldest DS - then 8, took little DS 3, tpo MacDonalds for Tea with his pocket money!!!

I was absolutely frantic - they'd gone out the back door and along the rat-run - my first thought was, as they'd been playing in the garden, that someone had come in and snatched them!!!

I must have looked a right looney - standing in the middle of the roid screaming for them!! POlice got the helicopters out and everything. Soo grateful to them for finding them and to the younbg pc, they sent round to me to try and comfort me - He had a very wet uniform - me crying all over him etc.

They found them walking home and brought them back in the police car - I think they were quite chuffed with that until they saw my face - all snotty and red-eyed!!! Mass cuddles and crying all round and I couldn't tell him off until a LOT later!!

Until that happens - you never really grasp just how much you love them!!!

SillyHilly_2

Glad everything was alright in the end.

I was with my friend and her toddler in ashopping centre one day and we lost sight of her for a minite and she had gone into a nearby bed store and climbed into one of the bed drawers. We had never been so glad to hear the words ' pee-poo' as we were that day.

Zeldazog

fubar wrote:

I understand that there is a Mall in one state where the parents can request a tracker the parent & child wears and that child and parent are tracked from the time they enter the mall to the time they leave, and the parent carries a receiver that bleeps if the child is more than 20ft away from the parent, if the child or parent starts to leave the mall without one or the other then alarms are sounded and the doors are automatically locked down.

Best system I have heard of yet.

Safeway in Eastwood had a creche facility where you were both tagged, same. Only person who could sign child back out was the person who'd signed in, and I was tagged so I couldn't sneak off the premises!

Best money I ever spent, felt so comfortable in there.