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From: Magot
Date: 10-11-2006, 05:47 PM (1 of 25)
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Tony and I had gone shopping on Saturday when he went to go and get a pair of swimming trunks form the sports shop and I was in a well known fashion retailors. I suddenly heard a woman screaming her childs name - she was uncontrollable distressed and had lost her 3 year old. I and at least 6 other woman hurtled towards her and fanned out to search for the child while some people stayed with her, she was beside herself with fear. The shop assistants found her upstairs ( the lure of the escaltor) and mother and daughter were reunited. I walked around the shop waiting for Tony, the thought of buying new clothes had turned to dust and ashes in my mouth and I found myself welling up in tears over and over again. When Tony found me I was unable to talk and needed to be taken off for a coffee and some tlc. Why did this affect me so badly? I know that I lost Katie when she was 3 for a short while - we were feeding a friends cat and she couldn't find me in the house and let herself out and walked home - some 200 yards. By the time I got home I was distraught. I don't think I was reliving that - it was the womans distress - my first thought was that the child was injured and I was going to have to help - this has happened to me more than once when out shopping and leaves me wrecked each time, once a child nearly choked to death and the other time a 4 year old was knocked down by a car. Bless him, Tony has got very good at putting me back together again afterwards. I think I was stunned and the strength of my own emotional reaction. Afterwards I was proud of the army of woman who just dumped their shopping and ran united, even if we weren't all needed. love and kisses, Jan
Guts-R-Us Cells a Speciality DNA to order. |
User: Magot
Member since: 12-22-2002 Total posts: 3626 
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From: Pudge99
Date: 10-11-2006, 06:10 PM (2 of 25)
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Jan, Here in the States we have what is called Code Adam. If your child gets lost you tell a store clerk, they get on the loud speaker and say "We have a CODE ADAM." followed by a brief description of the lost child. The store goes into lockdown and everyone (employees and customers) in the store begins searching. No one is allowed to leave the store until the child is found. I have had to use this once and now everytime I hear the announcement I get a upset. Often times tears well up, not because I am reliving my time but because I fear for that parent. That is one scary thing losing you child. Gina
Pictures of my successes and failures Pfaff 2040 Janome Mylock 134D Singer Futura CE-100 w/ Autopunch Husqvarna Viking 3D Sketch |
User: Pudge99
Member since: 10-30-2001 Total posts: 1375 |
From: lendube
Date: 10-11-2006, 07:32 PM (3 of 25)
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Haven't heard of Code Adam. A great idea. I assume it's for Adam (whose last name escapes me) whose Dad is so outspoken for lost children and has had the t.v. show America's Most Wanted for years. I have to confess my first thought is/was always abduction. Kids are grown now but the terror of not knowing where your child is isn't something I'll ever forget. I'm not at all surprised that the women rallied. I'd have been there too trying to help. We're sisters united when it comes to our kids. Kill for them or die trying...........  It only shows, Jan, that you're in the right line of work. You must love kids to be so affected each time you encounter this. Nothing wrong with that and how sweet of your hubby to just comfort you and understand.  take care, Lennie |
User: lendube
Member since: 08-06-2006 Total posts: 1548 |
From: Chrysantha
Date: 10-11-2006, 09:13 PM (4 of 25)
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John Walsh...(Adam's Dad).. Miss Jan...I don't have kids, but when I know one is hurt or in distress I make sure the child is taken care of.(as an abused kid it makes me sooooooo very mad at the adults who do this and soooooo very sorry for the kids.) Yep here in the states we do a PA Code in the stores and EVERYONE looks for the kids. You just care and Tony cares for you too...thats a good thing. [[[ ]]] I used to be fine in emergency situations...but I find as I get older, they effect me more and I tend to get sick from the adreniline. ( I shake and get sick...weird.) We're proud of you too... !!! 
Chrys
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User: Chrysantha
Member since: 09-06-2002 Total posts: 2414 
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From: Magot
Date: 10-12-2006, 01:44 AM (5 of 25)
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Thanks guys, I don't automatically think of abduction - it is so rare - but of accident or the child being lost. Code adam sounds like a great idea - there were things going on at the store behind the scenes that I couldn't see. Assistants were standing at the doors and searching changing rooms and all sorts. I found a little boy lost in a shopping centre once and no one would speak to him, I took him to the secuirity guard at a shop and they had a system that all the secuirity guards for the different shops were on the same cb band and they found his Mum pretty quick by broadcasting in all the shops. He was a great little lad - once he had calmed down he very clearly told me his name and address and even remembered what his Mum was wearing. SAd that no ne else would help a child in distress. love and kisses, Jan
Guts-R-Us Cells a Speciality DNA to order. |
User: Magot
Member since: 12-22-2002 Total posts: 3626
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From: mommydionne
Date: 10-12-2006, 09:02 AM (6 of 25)
Having lost my kids in stores (a few times )Start by heading to the door, and saying (loudly) lost child X years old, brown hair, blue shirt, grab a sales clerk (they are all drilled now on the routine) and most places have headsets etc. so you get the whole group on board in about 30 seconds. They will not let anyone leave the store with a child until seen by you. In North America they will call Code Adam over the pa system. Malls are tougher, Saying lost child (be loud, this is not a time to be shy or polite) with a quick description usually gets 80% of people looking and finding a mall employee gets doors covered ASAP, Usually they've just wandered off and you can't see them but lord forbid... Jeanette
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User: mommydionne
Member since: 01-08-2004 Total posts: 838 
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From: Bama
Date: 10-12-2006, 07:27 PM (7 of 25)
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Jan, I teared up just reading about it. Good for you for going to help that woman. When my kids were little I told them that if they ever got lost or separated from me or their grandmother in a store to walk up to a woman who had children with her and ask for help. |
User: Bama
Member since: 03-21-2000 Total posts: 2116 
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From: Sancin
Date: 10-12-2006, 09:07 PM (8 of 25)
I'm sure that one of mine wandered off more than once but one time I remember distinctly. Having 2 just a year apart and both looking alike it was difficult shopping when they were preschoolers. One time one went missing (the explorer, the other never let go of my leg) and after alerting every one in sight on the second floor of dept store I was in I noticed everyone coming up the escalator had odd looks on the faces. The escalator walls were plexiglass and had display tables covered with sheets to the floor all around the escalator walls. I walked to the other side of the escalator and there was my angel under the table face to the plexiglass waving at everyone coming up the escalator. He thought it was great fun and he could never understand why I worried about him - he thought he always knew where I was therefore it was silly to look for him. The clingy one, if lost, would have hidden somewhere and cried quietly and not talk to anyone. This was in the days before abductions were common or were written about at any rate. Parenthood is certainly not for the weak of heart.  One thing of living in the north that struck me in winter is that all children saw when shopping (unless in shopping carts) were bums and coat bottoms and they take up a lot of space in stores. I think it must be worse now that stores seem to make aisles narrower and narrower. I think I will buy my grandchild one of those wrist bracelets to wear. After they were out of back and front packs, I did make at least one of mine and sometimes both wear walking harnesses which used to cause comment in some stores. I think restraints cause natural consequences and beat the yelling and dragging I see these days. Further, if one of my children took something off a lower shelf and opened it it went back to the checkout as unwanted and comment that exciting things shouldn't be in reach. *~*~*~* Nancy*~*~*~* " I try to take one day at a time - but sometimes several days attack me at once."
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User: Sancin
Member since: 02-13-2005 Total posts: 895 
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From: ckmom002
Date: 10-13-2006, 12:19 PM (9 of 25)
| my daughter is in the hiding stage, well we were at hancokcks yesterday and she decided she was going to hide, well i couldnt find her (remind you she is 2) so i had the whole store looking for her i was starting to think someone took her!!! After about 10 mins of looking seemed like 2 hours she was hiding in some bolts of fabric on a shelve!!! |
User: ckmom002
Member since: 06-11-2006 Total posts: 105 |
From: bridesmom
Date: 10-16-2006, 10:10 PM (10 of 25)
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I lost my grandson this past summer. Thank God his mom had told him if he was ever lost to go to a store clerk or the counter at the front of the store and tell them you are lost. After frantic searching for about 10 minutes, which seemed like HOURS, I heard on the overhead ' Bailey is looking for his grandma, he is at the Service Desk". I was never so happy to hear those words. And did I ever hug him and tell him what a great kid he was to do that. Funny thing, his mom had only told him to do this the day before.
Laura
Tickled pink with my Innovis 4000D |
User: bridesmom
Member since: 01-21-2004 Total posts: 2026 |
From: Magot
Date: 10-17-2006, 10:46 AM (11 of 25)
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My Mum did that to me when she lost me in a shop - she was 65 and I was 45. Do you know how embarrassing that can be - being the recipient of a 'lost child' page at 45. It was only a small supermarket (5 aisles) with chairs at the exit. She only had to sit down and wait and the world and his wife would walk by....
love and kisses, Jan
Guts-R-Us Cells a Speciality DNA to order. |
User: Magot
Member since: 12-22-2002 Total posts: 3626
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From: Patty22
Date: 10-17-2006, 11:37 AM (12 of 25)
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I lost my son when he was two. He was there by my side one minute and the next............ I was home and thought he might have gone out the back door into the back yard and wetlands. I was pregnant at the time, which only accentuated the emotional anxiety of him being gone. After a search through the house, I went out and started calling his name............the neighbors all started looking. A neighbor suggested I look one more time in the house and there he was fast asleep in a laundry basket behind the window drapes. When he graduated High School I included a picture of him sleeping in the laundry basket on his quilt label. Your heart sinks at any age if you've experienced this..................... Just like Jan's mother 
Patty
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User: Patty22
Member since: 03-29-2006 Total posts: 1194 |
From: Magot
Date: 10-17-2006, 01:11 PM (13 of 25)
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I still maintain she was lost, not I.
love and kisses, Jan
Guts-R-Us Cells a Speciality DNA to order. |
User: Magot
Member since: 12-22-2002 Total posts: 3626
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From: MotherInLaw
Date: 10-17-2006, 02:33 PM (14 of 25)
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Whoaaaa Jan that story brings back some memories. My Mom lost my baby son in a strip mall (stores that are connected but have different entrances to the outside). When she found him 10 minutes later he was at the first store they were shopping in, seems he found a truck he wanted to look at a little more he seen when they were in that store. He was about 4 yrs old. The store they were in was about 5 or 6 down from the one they found him in. She brought him back home and told me never again would she bring him shopping. My sons use to play hide and seek in the middle of the racks, so needless to say they didn't go shopping with me often. Seems it was the perfect hiding place for a little one. Tony is a sweetheart Jan. The older Raymond gets the more sensitive he gets in times like that too. I'm regressing back into my youth, I just have to figure out how I'm going to convience my body to come along with me.
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User: MotherInLaw
Member since: 06-25-2005 Total posts: 1118 
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From: Sancin
Date: 10-17-2006, 04:07 PM (15 of 25)
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Jan I nearly lost my mother one time. I knew she tended to wander off so told her to stand still while I tried on a jacket. When I took the jacket off she wasn't there. I saw her, moving remarkable fast for one who said she couldn't, heading somewhere with my coat. When I caught up to her she said she found a coat and was taking it to the lost and found!  My brother used to groan as she always phoned him from a Mall saying she had lost her car. I now lose mine all the time!! I don't have my brother to call so have my aerial marked with a big yellow ribbon that no kid would steal. *~*~*~* Nancy*~*~*~* " I try to take one day at a time - but sometimes several days attack me at once."
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User: Sancin
Member since: 02-13-2005 Total posts: 895
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From: DorothyL
Date: 10-17-2006, 05:46 PM (16 of 25)
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I lost my daughter when she was about 12. She walked a friend home then never came home herself. I called the friend's house and called her other friends. No sign of her. I was walking all over the village looking for her. I was frantic. It turns out she was in her bed taking a nap and came downstairs a few house later. It was the one place I didn't look. Dorothy |
User: DorothyL
Member since: 12-09-2002 Total posts: 3883 |
From: LeapFrog Libby
Date: 10-17-2006, 07:29 PM (17 of 25)
I remember my Mother frantically looking for my brother when he was a toddler, and she was almost in hysterics.. I walked into his room and he was UNDER his crib asleep.. Mother had just glanced in the door and she saw the empty crib, but could not see under it.. He loved to sleep and if he wasn't put to bed, he went to sleep anyway.. My Dad taught him to go shake his crib..LOL 
Sew With Love
Libby |
User: LeapFrog Libby
Member since: 05-01-2002 Total posts: 2022 
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From: mamadus
Date: 10-17-2006, 10:26 PM (18 of 25)
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Sancin... I chuckled when I read your post about the harnesses.... I used harnesses for my kids... and I got a lot of funny looks from a lot of people... and a lot of comments about treating my children "like dogs".... but the harnesses allowed both them and me the assurance of knowing that noone was going to walk off with them, and that they were not going to be lost.... to this day I have my son's harness, which incidentally, was also my brother's harness... and eventually, I will pass it down to my son or daughter if they need or want it for their toddlers... MO life is too short, not to explore
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User: mamadus
Member since: 12-31-2004 Total posts: 492 
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From: Sancin
Date: 10-18-2006, 03:11 AM (19 of 25)
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I'll add to some more to some people's horror. I also harnessed my children in their highchair (no stroller as lived on gravel roads). I even had a soft restraint for the crib until they learned to stand up. I also slept my children at all times on their tummies and they crawled, more or less, at 4 months - but didn't walk until 14 and 15 months! It is amazing they lived, isn't it? And I am a maternal child nurse!! But logical consequences worked - I wasn't the one reminding them to stay where they were, they learned that there are restrictions in life. They learned that bed time was for lying down and chairs for sitting in and not climbing. Today every hazard that has ever happened only once would be cited, I am sure. How times change. Educational facilities push research - any research it seems or no job - publish or perish. Having been an academic myself, I really read and critique that research. fyi - I once had a visitor to my house who was upset when I told her 18 month old son to get off top of the piano, immediately. She reminded me that I should have said please. I informed her it wasn't a request.  Yet my children still occasionally got lost when shopping and I panicked as much as any mother would today. It is a good thing that children are borne and raised by the young. *~*~*~* Nancy*~*~*~* " I try to take one day at a time - but sometimes several days attack me at once."
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User: Sancin
Member since: 02-13-2005 Total posts: 895
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From: lsoutherla
Date: 10-18-2006, 01:47 PM (20 of 25)
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I always stop for kids who have the look of "I'm lost" at stores. It's amazing how many parents snatch the child, without a thanks, and as they walk off begin to berate the child for not staying up with them. When my son was young, I used the harness system also. I loved allowing him to move at his own pace and he loved playing horsey. It was something like fishing.. a gentle jerk of the wrist and he'd slow down or crawl out of whatever he was in/under/behind. I hate seeing adults holding the arms of young children and forcing them to run in order to keep up with the adult's pace. Now, the most awful feeling I've had with regard to losing a child came in 2003 when I took my Girl Scout troop on the Scouting pilgrimage to Savannah, GA to the Juliette Lowe House. The girls were aged 11-12. Four adults and 12 girls, a nice spread. However 2 adults were not of the responsible type and pretty much ran off and left us when possible (they told me later they enjoyed their vacation!). Anyway, we spent one day over on Tybee Island and took an hour or two to go swimming and play in the ocean. The waves were very rough and high. The girls were only allowed to go waist deep or so. I took point knee deep and the other (responsible) mother stood 50-75 ft down the beach, so we could keep the girls in between us and keep a diligent watch on them. We were both having to turn our heads as each wave came in and I started counting the girls over and over as the waves receded. Then, I count 11, not 12. I recount - 11, not 12. I'm a very calm person - outwardly. I pulled the girls in and sat them on the beach and determined who was missing. Of course, it's my daughter's best friend (and her mother was a good friend also) and the most petite of the girls. With the girls told to stay put we started searching for her. Others joined in the search. Eventually she was found wandering down the beach. I'm sure she was only missing for 30 minutes or so. It seemed forever. While she was missing, there was so much going thru my head: how to tell her mother she was gone being the main theme that played in my head. I mean how do you tell someone that you lost their only child? |
User: lsoutherla
Member since: 05-04-2006 Total posts: 72 |
From: lsoutherla
Date: 10-18-2006, 01:54 PM (21 of 25)
| Sancin, can we talk about unruly children!!??!!!?? Like the mother who's child swore at her like a sailor! And he was only four. He'd trash our house whenever they came over. Don't be fresh is all the mother would say. My daughter , also then 4, would crawl into a fetal position and suck her thumb when that little devil (I'm sure I mean it lovingly) was around. Heavens, I'd hate to see what the child is like now at 15! (thinking of that family still upsets me eleven years later.) |
User: lsoutherla
Member since: 05-04-2006 Total posts: 72 |
From: Sancin
Date: 10-19-2006, 03:29 AM (22 of 25)
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It is hard to watch some children grow up and learn about life. I always feel sorry (after I protect my children and property) for children who have so little control. Sharing is another thing. I had a friend whose little girl was rather large and snatched things (and was an only child) on play days. When I had my 2 at her house I had to remind my children when they complained that the toys belonged to the other girl and when she was at my house I had to tell them that they were to share their toys. They never said anything around the other mother or child but for 3+4 year olds they sure told me about it after. Why, mommy ...... ? That girl has grown up to be a lovely, tho not shy woman! I hear you re swimming. Having learned to swim before I could walk in the ocean right at my feet, I am constantly shocked at how little respect some people have for water - salt or pool. I got (no longer in situations) a reputation for being rather neurotic around rough housing in the water. My biggest fear was, that as a strong swimmer, I would have too many people to rescue! Further I am quite a short person and many times in pools I couldn't reach the bottom where others could.
*~*~*~* Nancy*~*~*~* " I try to take one day at a time - but sometimes several days attack me at once."
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User: Sancin
Member since: 02-13-2005 Total posts: 895
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From: Shellymoon
Date: 10-21-2006, 11:52 PM (23 of 25)
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I lost my 4-year-old at Six Flags one time! I was waiting for her and hubby to get off of a ride and here he comes around the bend without her. The exit to the ride had changed during the of season and she didn't realize it and went out the old way. He didn't notice she wasn't right behind him. We were frantic. I mean there are hundreds of people at Six Flags...and this happened just a few months after Amber (the little girl for whom the Amber Alert is named) was abducted. She was murdered just a few miles from this theme park! Well, we looked up and saw this elderly gentleman carrying her and she saw us at the same time. Thankfully, he had found her standing there crying and confused and helped her find us. I cringe every time I think about it. Shelly Moon
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User: Shellymoon
Member since: 05-27-2001 Total posts: 240 |
From: dianasiah
Date: 10-22-2006, 09:55 PM (24 of 25)
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My baby is 9months only... I worry already!!
Feel free to browse...
http://dianasiah.etsy.com http://dianasiah.blogspot.com http://sosantiquesafe.com |
User: dianasiah
Member since: 10-20-2006 Total posts: 24 |
From: mozeyrn
Date: 10-22-2006, 10:30 PM (25 of 25)
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Since I could understand English my mom had drilled into my head, "If we ever get lost/seperated NEVER EVER leave the store." When I was 3 I somehow got lost in the produce aisle (I still remember standing there crying) of the supermarket we always shopped at. A woman came up to me and asked if I was lost. I said, Yes, but my mom said to never leave the store". She took me up to the service counter and they called over the P.A. system. My mom comes running up with my two older brothers right behind her and my crying started all over again because I saw how scared she was. I lost my little one in Wal-Mart for about 10 seconds - felt like years! It seems she wanted to look at a pink sweatshirt and I thought she was right behind me. As I started yelling her name I started thinking, "I can't go home & tell my dh that I lost her" when a woman said, "She's right here on the other side of the rack". I had to go home (right after I stopped hugging her) I was so scared at what could have happened. - Maureen.
Learning something new with every stitch!! Kenmore 16231000 |
User: mozeyrn
Member since: 11-29-2005 Total posts: 349 |
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