police were banging on my door at 3am, my 8yo had been spotted walking half an hour away from home in her pyjamas with a backpack and they’d brought her back home. Thank god she was absolutely fine, it was the most terrifying experience of my life.
She had mentioned last week she wanted to go on a “big adventure” and felt like she was old enough to go out on her own and explore and do exciting things along, and maybe find a lost kitten. I obviously told her she can’t go out alone, gave her options of things we could do together or things she could do independently. I never in a million years thought she would actually take an opportunity to go out alone.
she is extremely intelligent, but has a really big imagination and believes in all kinds of fantasies and fairies which I thought was fine and normal but am now questioning. She is usually quite a shy girl but her trip out has not impacted her at all. She said she was a bit bored and lonely but that’s it.
I am absolutely freaking out in terms of what this means, I have always highly suspected my daughter has autism but nobody takes me seriously, I’m now considering a private diagnosis. I’ve set plans in place to keep her safe, I’ll be making sure no keys get left in doors overnight and putting an alarm on her door.
im scared about the police aspect of this, they seemed happy enough that she was fine and left us to it but I feel so ashamed and scared that I’m a bad mother.
just need advice I’m an absolute wreck. Didn’t shout at my daughter at all just tried to understand why she left, explaining how dangerous it was for her to do that and thanking god nothing worse happened.