Feeling uncharacteristically like world's worst mother today

[linglette]

Because after school today I walked out of the school hall for 2 minutes leaving DS1 to look after Ds2, got back, found Ds2 gone, was told he'd walked out of the school, and found another parent rescuing him a whole street away from our school.

He was trying to find me by going back to the car . I feel so shaken. He's never left the school premises before.

He's kind of finally figuring out that I'm not the same person as him IYKWIM and figuring out the boundaries - so he doesn't want me to leave him at the neighbours' house, gets anxious at nursery pick-up time and at his bed-time tells me that I should go to bed too. So whilst previously he'd have played happily for two minutes, today he must have gone rushing after me and decided I'd gone outside without him . Greenspan says that every time they reach a new developmental milestone it brings problems because it's like being promoted at work and having to do a harder job.

Only positive thing to say is that (i)he kept telling the other parent that he needed to find his mummy and (ii)he's started wearing the school uniform jumper to school nursery so it was obvious he was a child connected to our school.

Doesn't stop me feeling lousy right now though. I'm crap at the safety basics and I put his life in danger.

Poor you Linglette.
Bet you are really cut up.
It is important to remember that this could have happened to any child irrespective of their needs (its really importnat not to pathologise any and every behaviour,I can't stress that enough).

It's great that he was able to say what he was doing.

There can't be a mother on this earth who hasn't temporarily lost sight of/mislaid her child.

I once left my new baby in the back of the car in a multi story, locked it and only remembered about her about 10 mins. later in a shop. (That was around the time I drove off leaving my brand new Phil & Ted in the street, remembering about it perhaps a quarter of an hour later.)

Therefor the shite mother crown is mine I believe.

Very large cup of tea for you, I think.

If it makes you feel any better (and it might not), when DS was young I went to a friend's house and had assumed that DS was safely playing in their hallway with her DS (well, wrestling, but that was sort of play). Then it went a bit quiet and we felt a bit of a draught. Yup, he'd figured out the front door catch and taken him and friend out for a run to the nearest set of shops, aged 2. My whole life flashed before my eyes. Never run so fast in all my life. Still wake up now with nightmares about it. Did I feel like the world's worst mum? Yup.

He's still alive. It helped me double-check everything after that point.

I agree with moondog.

I could so see this happening to me, but with dd2 (the NT one). And I can remember similar happening to me too whenI was little - I was in town with my older brothers, lost sight of them in a busy shop, and so decided that the most sensible thing I could do was walk home, as then at least mum would know where I was I was about 6 at the time.

It really is something that every mother goes through at some point, and the thing to focus on is that your ds was telling people what he was doing, and not panicking about finding you - well done mini-linglette!

He was calm, collected, and set off to achieve something he thought was achievable. that in itself is a credit to you and how much work you have put in. He formed aplan, put it into action, and crucially, was able to articulate it to other people too.

Thank you so much [happy][happy]

All three of you have understood so well and said what I wanted RL people to say but they didn't....guess they don't really "get" that extra dimension we have in our relationships with our children.

Right - I mustn't indulge myself here - wallowing doesn't help - I made a mistake and I will make more - god gave me a free one, as they say. So instead I must think about how to discuss this with DS2.

I think the only area where his needs came in was that the whole "now if you're at school and you can't find mummy just stay there and wait" conversation is not one we've had........clearly I need to "rehearse" this drill with him in as concrete a form as possible bearing in mind the limits on his "theory of mind" understanding too. That should keep me occupied!!!!!

Please please please don't feel bad. My terrible confession - DD1 (NT. three and a half) in cosy child's section of bookshop sitting looking at picture book, I turn round to look at a book - turn back, she's gone - I run screaming through shop up and down aisles and in fact she's just outside door in mall crying - kind woman brought her in. She's ten and I still shudder to think about it. But when I told my mother she informed me that she turned round in dept store once (she had younger bro in buggy) and i had disappeared and had actually managed to go up the (exciting!) escalator and was on another floor...

thanks b. [happy]

thank you, yes, I'm back to normal irritatingly optimistic self now!

I'm glad you're feeling better.

As others have said, I think we've all been there at some point. I've lost at least one of mine in various places, including once while meeting up with another MNer from the SN board. I've even managed to lose one child less than an hour after retrieving another one. Double