Children dying in cars due to heat

[Soubriquet]

I know people say accidents happen, but I genuinely can’t understand how people leave their kids in the car and forget about them.

I mean, even when I was so exhausted I forgot my own name, I still had my children in my forefront of my mind.

It’s a heartbreakingly sad and I do feel sorry for the parents when they discover they left their kids in the car but I still don’t understand how.

Things like adhd can cause really bad memory loss and inability to create routines in their brain. A lot of women have it but are undiagnosed

So if they forget their dog in the car and it dies then it’s ok?

@ButterCrackers I think it depends entirely on whether the action was deliberate or not.

Exactly, @horumforaforum.

@ButterCrackers, did the WaPo article that's been linked to many times not make you rethink your judgements on these cases at all?

Of course it isn’t ‘ok’ @ButterCrackers. none of this is ok but it is about human fallibility and trying to find ways to help people not make this mistake.

There is a huge difference between knowingly and deliberately leaving a child (or dog) in a hot car and doing so by accident.

Obviously it’s terrible. There has to be a deterrent. Dogs have the animal cruelty act so there must be something similar for kids. I have never forgotten my kid in the car. I have no answers apart from if you’re so tired out it’s stopping you for functioning then don’t drive. That’s a hassle but it will avoid tragedy.

This was an absolutely stunning awareness campaign IMO. Matt Moran is a very well-known chef in Australia.

Most of the posters here have also never left their child in the car all day by mistake. But we can also see how it can happen and don’t wish to add further torment to those parents by criticising them and saying ‘I would never do that’. They also thought they were the sort of parents who wouldn’t make that mistake.

The deterrent is that your child could die. What more deterrent could there possibly be?

Kids have died as reported in the links on the thread.

I know, but I'm still wondering what on earth you think could be a bigger deterrent. As has been covered repeatedly, these aren't cases of terrible, neglectful parents. They're slips of the mind with devastating consequences.

Isn’t that to stop people intentionally leaving their dog in a car though? None of these children were intentionally left, something similar to the animal cruelty act isn’t going to help prevent incidents involving babies and children.

That Washington post article has stayed with me since the day I read it. I’ve read it several times since (and reread it again today after it was posted here). No matter what anyone says, it could happen to any of us. After I read it I started making DH (he was the only driver then) put his work bag and laptop next to the car seat in the back so he would never forget to check the back seat. As the article itself says there will always be those who do it deliberately or negligently through drink or drugs but there is an absolute tragedy in those who do it accidentally.

I can easily see how people do this.

In one of the articles linked someone is asked if this could have happened to him and he says ‘no, I am a watchful father’. I am a watchful mother, I tell my children to be careful pretty much every time time I hear them on the stairs, I don’t let them have a trampoline etc etc BUT I can absolutely see that back when we had just one baby if I’d had to drop them off and it was out of the ordinary for me I could have just gone into autopilot doing my usual morning drive to work. Easily.

Exactly @buttnut. It’s a completely different situation. Some people think it’s ok to leave a dog in a car in hot weather and do so deliberately while they go to a shop etc. It is of course not ok and so a law exists to tell people that they should not leave their dog in a car, and if they do so deliberately, they might be charged with a crime.

The cases of babies dying in hot cars are a completely different situation. These parents love their children and care about their safety and wellbeing. They haven’t thought ‘Oh, I won’t bother dropping them at nursery today, they can just wait in the car while I go to work’. Talk of ‘deterrents’ in terms of prison sentences etc is completely irrelevant. Instead, what is needed is awareness, and strategies to help parents manage busy lives, especially when they are tired or out of routine.

Awareness is raised every time the issue is discussed publicly, so hats off to those bereaved parents who have bravely taken opportunities to talk publicly about their very painful mistake. That can’t be an easy thing to do but they do so because they want other parents to think about the issue so that they don’t end up in the same situation.

In terms of strategies- some have been mentioned here, eg putting car keys/phone/bag on the back seat at the start of the journey. Technology has also been mentioned in some posts so it seems there are tools that can be used to help parents check their car before heading into work.

That’s a very short sighted opinion, it really is.

I used to put DS in the front passenger seat for exactly this reason (airbag off, obviously). I could see him, he could see me. Also meant he didn’t scream the whole journey long during the separation anxiety years.

One of the worst parts of that article is some of the parents didn’t ever have that moment of ‘oh shit, Mary is still in the car, I should have dropped her off!!!’ moment … they drove all the way to nursery to collect the child with said child dead in the back seat of the car all along

Ive just remembered I once went to a childcare setting to collect my children on a day they usually went, nearly gave the provider a heart attack when they weren’t there but it turned out I’d swapped the days around that week and they were with my Mum. Autopilot has a lot to answer for sometimes.

No it really isn't easy.

I'll need to use my phone at some point for work or to pay things. I don't need to use my child for anything in my daily routine.

I don't think forgetting your child on a changed new routine means your child means any less to you or is any less loved... Your post actually is an example of what we call FAE (fundamental attribution error), a psychological reaction where out of subconscious fear, we convince ourselves it could never happen to us as we're better in some way!

I presume your daily work routine (assuming you work) isn't a very busy/complex one, or it already involves your child

And that it never, ever changes. Many of the cases where this has happened are in situations where the normal routine has changed even slightly and it sets off a chain reaction.

For anyone getting caught out by a paywall, the whole article referenced earlier is reproduced here:

https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/gene-weingarten-0

Child cruelty is illegal too.
If someone deliberately left their baby in a car to go shopping or for lunch they'd be prosecuted.

Same with dogs - no one is going to be prosecuted for a tragic accident.

My car tells me to check the backseat when I leave, so I guess it's common enough for cars to have this new feature.