3 year old boy (Noah) missing in Brantham, Suffolk

[LabubuTERF]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr5yev2v1x29o

Oh God bless him! Every parents worse nightmare!

I take every precaution possible with my SEN child of a similar age. I truly don’t think I could possibly do anymore to prevent something like this happening to my child, short of literally having him surgically attached to me. I’m extremely cautious.

But still when I see stories like this, my first and only thought is “there but for the grace of God go I”. It really, really doesn’t take much to go wrong for disaster to happen. I know this could happen to my child if the circumstances aligned, no matter how cautious I am.

Anyone taking a moment like this to criticise this little boy’s grandad is certainly very dim but probably also very cruel. I cannot get my head around such a mindset.

The grandad fell over while chasing him. There were other people in the park who saw it happen. My 3 year old can very easily outrun her 64 year old grandmother.

My son is 3, he’s has 2 older sisters who never ran off but he consistently does. He doesn’t look back he just bolts and he’s incredibly fast. Somewhere like a playground you obviously wouldn’t have him on reins or in a buggy (which I do when walking somewhere to keep him safe)
these things take literally a blink of an eye to happen; I’ve lost my son for an hour once at a child’s play farm and had the entire staff looking for him. I was there on my own and was helping his sister down from a climbing frame and then he was gone. Thankfully the manager found him hiding in the corner of the softplay indoors.
I would never judge because unless you’ve experienced having a child who runs and bolts then you probably don’t understand how quickly it can happen and how fast they are.

Argh okay I owe an apology. I’ve gone back and checked it properly and the figure I gave was completely wrong. I used bloody ChatGPT to look it up and it gave me a bullshit answer, which I stupidly took at face value rather than verifying it myself!
The 16 cases I quoted were just a selection of publicly reported cases that it had found, not the total number of missing children in the UK over the last year. Thousands go missing every year, and 75-80% of those are over the age of 12 and 90% of are found within 48 hours (I didn’t use ChatGPT for that!!)

I still stand by the point I was trying to make though, that a 3 year old disappearing is particularly concerning because of his age and vulnerability, but I shouldn’t have backed that up with inaccurate statistics. Apologies all!

That was NOT the reason! Some of the reasons were, limited results, child trauma - kids getting scared before going off to school that day, packaging changes and new technology.
These missing children were not local kids who had not gone missing that afternoon or the day or even week before. Some had been missing years. The reasons for not putting faces on the milk cartons anymore weren't because pedophiles were checking the milk cartons for their victim in the vast area of the United States!!* *

There are apparently witnesses to the whole thing. Presumably not close enough by to intervene. And who of course wouldn't have known that the child had additional needs. Your first instinct would be to shout to the child to stop, wouldn't it, but evidently that might not work in this scenario. No suggestion anyone did anything wrong.

this is absoultey awful this thread shuld be taken down

Why do people find it so hard to imagine that a three-year-old (whether NT or ND) could not outrun some adults? My three year old (ND) could absolutely outrun me and I did not have any specific disabilities at that time apart from being older. Not everyone has the same physical capabilities. All the speculation about the granddad is awful. We know nothing about him.

But you’re not interested in the missing child. How’s anything you’ve said useful in helping this child? Do you really think anything you’ve said is remotely useful to anyone looking for this child? Very obviously not. All you’re interested in is being smug and cruel online. Deeply sinister mindset tbh.

Bloody hell, this thread should be deleted. It's even worse than the Nicola Bulley threads.

No more sinister than the speculation and the claims to be grief stricken with which the internet is awash.

We shouldn't be "open to all possibilities" because kindly,you should stop being a wannabe armchair detective and hope those who have more information than you,are doing their job behind the scenes 🤦

And don’t tell me I’m not interested in a missing child. I wouldn’t be reading up on it if I didn’t care all parents will be feeling this deeply today. Get a grip.

You can wonder things in your own mind without letting them out of your mouth or posting them on social media. If you are part of the police team dealing with this then sure, go share your suspicions. As a random member of the public (which I suspect is what you are) who do you think you are helping with this speculation? Certainly not this little boy.

As the poster has acknowledged, that figure is incorrect. There is no centrally collated figure, but on average over 200 children go missing per day. Some estimates put the figure at over 500. However, these are mainly older children (including teenagers) and the vast majority turn up within a week. The ones that make the news are generally those where the child is particularly vulnerable.

Well, I had an (undiagnosed) autistic 4 year old and went to a shopping centre with him. We were looking at children's books together and it took him literally seconds to leg it away from me, while I was reaching for another book, and into another shop franchise.

I found him very soon after, but I do sympathise with the grandad, it isn't easy when they run off.

Oh I'm sure you're interested. You're treating it as some form of entertainment.

@jade271 it’s clear you’ve not quite understood what I meant. Not hugely surprising.

I have no idea what you’re on about re Bluey. It relates to nothing I’ve said.

You’re right, you can discuss what you like but you should expect others to discuss your input too. That’s what I’m doing. I think the impulse to cast aspersions on someone going through potential tragedy speaks to a very dark character.

You implied some awful things about this man. If there is something to be found in that regard, I’m quite sure the huge amount of police that are on the case will have already considered it long before a bright spark like you decided to post about it on mumsnet. So what good possibly comes of you posting it? Absolutely nothing whatsoever. But it potentially does cause harm.

I haven’t speculated anything. Read what I said. I believe he’s gotten lost and is stuck somewhere or has gotten hurt which is tragic. But we got these pathetic women with the attitude of leave poor grandad alone. Who cares? And everyone stop saying you aren’t helping find this boy, none of us are? Like do you think all these nonsense ideas of a huge projection of Bluey into the sky is this ground breaking idea to make him come back? Like seriously get a grip.

it’s not crazy to wonder if there’s another possibility here.

No it's not crazy to wonder, it's human nature to look for reasons/blame when something tragic may have potentially happened. But it isn't helpful, and all it does at this stage is cause distress to those affected by it, and potentially start rumours which snowball out of control, none of which is helpful during an active search for a missing child.

No one is trying to police your thoughts, but that is all they should be.. thoughts.

But you can also feel empathy without doing the performative ‘I can’t stop thinking about it/I can’t sleep’ etc.

And apart from the poster who was involved in the search what is ANYTHING in this thread doing to help the kid?

Same. My now 16 year old was a non verbal bolter at the age of three to about 7. I had many heart stopping moments and indeed lost him for a while when he shot out of our local park. He raced home while I was circling the park with everyone else I could find. I’ve never forgotten it. Terrifying.

I didn’t accuse him of anything I’ve said so many times I actually think the boy is LOST. It’s you who’s not understood anything I’ve said. Because you’re looking to argue online. I’ve not read anything on this threat that’s accused the grandad at all. But I don’t think people are evil for saying how did a 3 year old out run an old man, you’re all piling on people for asking that question. Other people have been respectful and said oh no genuinely my child’s outrun me - absolutely fair response. But you’re too unintelligent and jumping to omg don’t accuse grandad when no one really has