Have you been seperated from your child in a public place for more than 10 minutes and what did you do?

[Happybrewer]

I'm sure it's happen to us all at some point, even if we imagined it.
I (a few years ago took my eldest daughter (she was little then 4 1/2) to the Lady Diana playground in Hyde park, for those of you who don't know it, it's a great! if not very busy playground. It has only 1 way in and out usually with an attendant at the gate.
Star, was starting to want minor independence and asked if she could go off and play alone. I agreed and sat near the gate with other parents.

We had done this before and she would usually come back every 5/10 minutes of so to tell me what fun she was having, or to ask me to join in. O this occasion 20 minutes passed and my fear levels started to rise.
I asked a mum sitting next to me to keep an eye out for a small blonde girl, looking for her dad, and to say I'd be back after my search.
I went all around the park and couldn't find her, on return to my waiting spot the other mum said she hadn't seen her !!!! now I'm panicking, I go to the attendant, she assures me that no children had left alone, so I asked the mum to continue to keep watch while I ran madly around the play park calling her name and asking every other parent if the had seen her, to no avail.
I think I was very close to calling the police, and then she appeared from the Pirate ship where she had been playing with other children deep within it's bowls. possibly the one place I hadn't searched.
So how long before you call the police?
I have friends who have lost a child on a beach for 3/4 of an hour and hadn't called the police, I said I would have done it

[belledechocchipcookie]

Interesting first post/thread.

I wouldn't take my eyes off a child this young in a park.

[valiumredhead]

No way would I have had a constant eye on a 4 year old, especially in that park - it's heaving! You really didn't see your child for 20 mins OP before you started panicking?

[valiumredhead]

I would I mean!

[thisisyesterday]

omg 3/4 of an hour... on a beach????? i would have been freaking after about 5 minutes on a beach! how bloody stupid

aaaanyway, yes, I have. I was at bewilderwood and my 2 eldest were playing in a small(ish) play area. I needed to feed the baby so sat down by the 1 gate to feed him, knowing i'd see either of the other 2 should they escape.
my eldest was 5 and the middle one was 2.5yrs

I sat and watched them, occasionally they went out of sight, then popped up again, then I realised I hadn't seen ds2 for a while. Got up and had a wander aroudn, calling his name, found ds1 and asked him to go and look in all the bits I couldn't get to.... then found another exit that I hadn't spotted before.

i totally panicked. I didn't know whether to stay there, or go out, bewilderwood is huge and (as name suggests) is in a wood... so he could have wandered out of the main park really easily.

they all had ID bracelets on, but when i checked my phone I had no signal :(
I was walking around shouting and shouting and shouting, finally found a member of staff and said I'd lost my son. was at least 10-15 minutes by this time since I had seen him last.

We were walking around calling him and this man came up and said "have you lost a little boy? he' in the maze"

went into maze and found him! he was having a nice time, tho he had wet himself which made me nearly cry thinking of him needing the toilet and not being able to get out. I am so glad he went in the maze tho cos if he'd been wandering free he could have got so far

I was also amazed at the amoutn of people who must have seen him and didn't look after him or take him out of the maze or see if anyone was with him, no-one had even looked at his ID bracelet.
I'd like to think if i saw a small child wandering around with no obvious adult in sight i'd keep an eye on them for a bit until I knew someone was with them

[Mishy1234]

This hasn't happened to me, but I imagine I would probably panic a bit if it was a long as 10 minutes. That wouldn't help at all I know, but that's my honest answer.

Not sure how long I would wait before calling police.

[Fecklessdizzy]

DS2 did a runner at Warwick Castle while I was taking photos of DS1 and Mate Of DS1 trying on the hardware in the armoury.

Warwick is a fabbo castle but fully equiped with sheer drops off battlements/fathomless moats/ wells/ giant catapults/ blokes on horses thundering around and so not really the best place for an unattended 3 year old some I ran up and down in a flat panic gibbering for what felt like 20 years but was probably more like 2 minutes then grabbed a security guard and put out an APB on a short person in a purple T-shirt and he was apprehended a few minutes later in the gift shop eyeing up the knights.

I'm starting to hyperventilate thinking about it now and it was ages ago ...

[thisisyesterday]

and i'll tell you the other thing that concerned me, when I found a member of staff they didn't seem to have any kind of routine of dealing with lost children. he had a walkie talkie but he didn't radio for anyone else to help look, or for people to be on the look-out for a child of ds2's description at entrance/exit or anything. he just kind of came with me to look for him.

[GooseyLoosey]

I lost dd when she was 5 in M&S. After about 2 mins of not being able to find her, I contacted security and they closed the store and would let no one in or out until she was found. No way I would lose sight of a 4 year old for 20 mins without panicing.

[Buttonmushroomhomewrecker]

...yesterday my ds6 insisted on going to the toilet on his own in a service station in Italy. He ran under the barrier to the mens. I waited for 10 mins outside. i had no change to get into the toilet and well, it was the mens. I didn't know how big they were whether there was a fire exit and was ahouting his name but not gettign an answer. He normally leaves the door wide open.

I don't know what i was afraid of, I'm not normally paranoid but i had to send the cleaner in after much translation. He had locked the door and was having a poo, but had no paper and was shouting for me but I couldn't hear him.

Jesus I must have looked a right state mentally taking note of all the innocent men using the toilet, what they were wearing etc counting them in an out. i just got a horrible panicky feeling and wanted to jump the barriers and kick all the doors down.

He saunters out with an unwiped backside having a go at me for moaning!

[feckwit]

I lost my dd1 aged 3 in a retail park. We were in matalan (myself, dh and DS1 who was in a pushchair, me heavily pregnnt with DS2). She ducked under one of the clothes rails and I called her to come out and she didn't. Called again and then went round the other side and she wasn't there. I ws not too worried, assumed she would appear in a minute. 5 mins passed and dh and I were getting anxious, asked at the desk and they hadn;t seen her. I'm standing with DS in pushchair and my husband is running up and down the aisles.

A security guy is helping and all staff and then a lady asks "Does she have pink legging on?" Yes we replied and she said "Oh, she went out the doors".

My DH ran to the car to look for her, it is a big retail park in a big city, still no sign of her, at this point the police are called and security are telling me they will look at the cctv and see if somebody was with her. I was in a real state. She was missing for 30 minutes before she was found in the pet store. It was awful, so so scary.

[southeastastra]

deep within it's bowls

[Happybrewer]

I hear the "I wouldn't ever do it" but I did right or wrong the interesting thing coming out of this is that WE are the ones who can/should help, I would definitely approach a child below...7/8 I guess and ask if they needed help, even as a Guy, I have had this discussion with male friends and some have said they might not approach due to fear of other thinking they were a "Bad Man" etc

[psiloveyou]

I lost ds at a water park in Tenerife when he was 4. Within two minutes of him going I was hysterical. He was gone for 30 minutes before he walked up to a lady and said he had lost his mummy. Worst day of my life.
I really had just turned my head and he was gone. No way would I not have contact for 20 minutes that's mad.

[300DisneyDollars]

I returned a little boy to a mum yesterday in big branch of Boots. He looked like he wasn't with anyone, I just watched him for a little while to assess if he really was with someone but he just wandered around alone. After a minute or two I went over to him and asked him if he was lost, he didn't answer so I just kept an eye on him a minute more then asked 'have you lost your mummy?'. Again he didn't answer.

There was no staff around and I didn't want to take my eyes off him to go and find someone, so again just watched a little bit longer. He started trying to get through the door to the babychange and started to look at little upset so this time I said 'where is your mummy? Shall we go and look for her?' and then he nodded, all tearful, and we walked around looking for his mum/member of staff. When we found her, he looked so relieved and he was crying by this point and she just said 'oh'. We must have been about 6 aisles away from her and I'd been watching him for the best part of 10 minutes. I couldn't understand how she wasn't looking for him or worried. He could only have been about 3.

I held my DDs hand a little tighter after that!

[Happybrewer]

Both myself and 2 of my children have dyslexia, which is hard to spell alone (I had to search it then) and I'm sure there are many of us with kids in that boat (Bow's or Bowls) see I still can't actually see a difference, but on many sites usually youtube and face book misspellings are ridiculed...it's not funny

[300DisneyDollars]

HappyBrewer My DH has said he would be worried about approaching a lost looking child. Once in a childrens science museum a man came over to me (I had DD1 and baby DD2 with me) to say there was a lost looking girl and would I go and ask if she was ok because he didn't want to do it, worried about being thought of as a 'bad man' I guess. I went over and she had got separated from a school group and I took her over to a staff member.

I totally understand why the man didn't want to get involved, thought it was a good idea of his to get a mummy-type to get involved instead and i was happy to help.

[Happybrewer]

That id honorific, I feel for you, it's easy to point fingers but we can't always be perfect and they are themselves and do odd things sometimes

[thisisyesterday]

i've always told ds1 that if he ever gets lost he must tell an adult as soon as he can. I said to try and spot someone else with children and talk to them- male or female

it's silly i think because I am not generally an hysterical paedo-spotter (i have pics of the kids on facebook, let them play naked on the beach, have no problem with them talking to random men (ds1 does this a lot)) But, I just figured that he's marginally safer approaching someone who is with their own children

now i feel bad insinuating that he shouldn't approach lone men. it's kind of stupid isn't it?

[TheArmadillo]

I took ds to Hengrove play park in Bristol (big park with water/sand and loads of equipment in a retail park). He was about 2.5yo and it was heaving. We were just going home - I bent down to pick up the bags and by the time I stood up he had disappeared. Normally I could have seen the whole park but there were too many people that day. I knew he could open the gate to the park and get out into either of the two car parks both of which led out to dual carrigeways.
Within 5-10 minutes I was hysterical and had checked everywhere including the car parks. Another mum called over the park attendants - 1 checked the cctv and another went to have a look round the park.

About 20 mins later ds wondered back completely unconcerned (he had been playing with some big children apparently). We were on the verge of calling the police - he had been missing for over 1/2 hour. I feel bad to say when I found him I didn't really stop to thank anyone I just dragged him off to the car and locked/strapped him in where he couldn't escape.

I really did think at one point that I would not see him again

We've lost him other times but only for 5 minutes or so - that one was the worst. I never went to the park when it was busy again. Which unfortunately meant not going at weekends or in the holidays even when the weather was lovely - but I was too terrified of losing him.

[WipsGlitter]

We lost DS1 on Friday in a shopping centre. Didn't realise he was gone until DP saw him in the arms of a security guard. I'd gone into a shop and told DS1 to go over to his dad, DP didn't hear me say this and thought he was still with me. He wandered off. Makes me sick thinking about it now.

[Aliensstolemysanity]

We lost our DS aged 3 in a very large branch of Tesco, we were at the tills, loading bags and we each thought he was with the other parent and he had actually wandered off. We panicked immediately and told customer services and fortunately they have security guards at all the exits which they shut! He was found in the toy aisle, happy as larry - no one approached him to ask if he was on his own which I thought was a bit odd. He still does it from time to time, supermarkets, hotels, airports (large spaces mainly) but I have worked out some easy ways of spotting him - you will know us in real life - I am the only mother with both children dressed in either bright orange or bright green ALL THE TIME! It works for me!

[snice]

if it makes you feel any better I lost DS then aged about 4 in that pirate ship in the Diana playground-I hadn't realised that it had a downstairs bit and was hunting for ages before my daughter found him. I was starting to panic although I knew he couldn't have left the playground