To think a quick headcount on getting back into the car is not too difficult to remember?

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

BBC news story here. A family left their 3yo at a motorway service station and didn't notice that she wasn't in the car for 2 hours. How? Poor little kid. Hope she's all right now.

The article linked to is moving and excellent

I think the quote from the psychologist hits a nerve:

“We are vulnerable, but we don’t want to be reminded of that. We want to believe that the world is understandable and controllable and unthreatening, that if we follow the rules, we’ll be okay. So, when this kind of thing happens to other people, we need to put them in a different category from us. We don’t want to resemble them, and the fact that we might is too terrifying to deal with. So, they have to be monsters.” *

My parents put my brother and I out of the car once, for arguing.
They'd warned us to stop, presumably we didn't and they followed through.
Just put us out, at the side of the road.
We were just leaving from a holiday in Wales to return home to Kent.

They drove off. I was about 6? and brother about 10.
I started walking (the wrong way...)
He waited.
They came back, but not before they were well out of sight.

But I've never forgotten it and think how irresponsible they were.

Glad this small person was found quickly and unharmed.

YABU it happens.

We live in France. Parents are not so hot on strapping their kids in the car, i have a 4yo and at school pick up at the village school often the kids just jump in the back of the car 1970s style.

I can imagine the parents just told the kids to get in the car, assumed they had all obeyed lit up a fag and drove off and assumed the kids had just nodded off in the back.

The French article says the dad noticed when they got to the toll booth and he turned around and she wasn't there.

Last time I took the dcs to France I had a real, genuine, fear of this happening to one of my quieter, less demanding children. I think it's because being in a country where you don't speak or read the language fluently, driving for literally days in some cases, and getting the hang of driving somewhere different, and trying to keep everyone happy is bloody exhausting, and it just felt like something had to give. Obviously this didn't happen to us, but actually I can see how it could. Not excusing it, and had it happened in my case I wouldn't be excusing it either.

Dear God. that child must have been terrified, idiots!! Let's hope she is not scared for life! poor little thing,

My grandma did that - left uncle sleeping in his pram outside the butchers.

To be fair, she was very short of sleep with a newborn and air raids, and the queue for the butchers had been very long. By the time she had got through the queue, she had forgotten she had the baby.

I am also shocked at how anyone could forget their child but each year many children die from being forgotten and left in cars. I really don't understand it

I think it could happen to anyone. Humans are able to really switch off and/or have there attention and focus so firmly on one thing that they don't notice something as day to day and important as the fact that they had their child with them. Read some more on the babies left in the car at work by parents. Heartbreaking. This could have been a useless neglectful family but far more likely it was one like yours or mine. People are quick to judge when it's never happened to them.

*their

Hibble, by any stretch of the imagination I am a capable parent and human being, but I left DC4 on the driveway in the car once for 20 minutes in a wet, cold day just after Christmas, and only noticed when I looked around to give him his toasted crumpet and he wasn't anywhere to be found. I though DH had unloaded him. Poor little mite had been absolutely sobbing his heart out in desperation and when I realised what had happened I felt terrible. He still remembers it and I still keep apologising profusely. Every time we stop somewhere he reminds us to take him with us and not leave him behind. I feel terribly guilty even a couple of years later, but it was a complete oversight and I honestly think anyone could be capable of this in the wrong circumstances.

Am I the only one who read this story and felt real empathy? It gave me a stomach-lurch thinking about the moment they realised it was them...

Me too.

I can completely understand one parent forgetting, but not two.

Oh this is the kind of thing I am always afraid of. After 2 children things get muddled much more easily, I am often tricked into thinking I'm watching them all if I am also trying to have a conversation with someone.. I know I sound terrible, but even with the best intentions I can see myself doing this..

Does anyone remember the poor man who's little boy was accidentally left in the back of his car on a baking hot day ? He didn't usually do the nursery drop off and just forgot about him. Breaks my heart, one tiny mistake, one dippy moment... That could be me :(