What to do when your child is lost in the World?

[kaysmommie]

We were the finders of a little boy (3?) at the teacups in 11/05. Anyone lose him?? Anyway, me & another mom spotted him at the same time. We moms seem to have a sixth sense about knowing who is lost sometimes. I took him to a CM, who had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what to do with him. We bought him some water - he had to have been lost for quite a while - he just gulped it down. We took him to the CM's in the Tomorrowland store next to Cosmic Ray's. We hung around for quite a while before we moved on.... NO ONE CLAIMED HIM in all that time! I was really upset that he was without his family for all that time....where were they? and why didn't WDW have a better system of contacting his family? They had to be searching for him too. I couldn't believe that WDW didn't have it's own sort of walkie-talkie system going to help parents in this situation. They were truly clueless.

That scares me to death that they don't have a better system for lost kids. I always tell DD to go to another mom (with kids of course) if she not sure about the CM. We do wear matching Tshirts at least for some of our trip for this reason. Thats sad no one was claimed him in that time because most moms would be frantic and losing it by then. I guess he wandered off. My kids know they are in big trouble for wandering even a few feet away, but better safe than sorry in this world.

 

[Beth E. (NJ)]

What I told my girls (who are now 11 and 8) was to look for anyone dressed in "Disney CM clothes." As we discussed before we got to WDW and when we were there, the people who work at WDW don't dress the same way guests do. They were instructed to look for someone "in work costume" with the name badge.

 

[mouseketeer_mom]

One of the very first things we did was to introduce DD to a CM. They were really very nice about the whole thing and showed their name tag. DD was told to look for someone wearing that kind of name tag.

OT: LaraK, I just noticed the KOTS in your signature. Smart girl you are! As I am a member I shall add it to my signature immediately.

 

[NotUrsula]

I couldn't believe that WDW didn't have it's own sort of walkie-talkie system going to help parents in this situation. They were truly clueless.

They do have a system, a very good one. Somehow you had the misfortune to find CM's who had either blanked on their training or didn't want to be bothered. Lead CM's at every location have the means to put out an alert that a lost child has been found. This article from Mouseplanet explains how the system works (the article is about DL, but it works the same way at WDW): http://www.mouseplanet.com/akrock/akrock7.htm

One thing you said does bother me, though I know you had the child's best interests in mind. You "took" the child to all these locations, which probably contributed to his family's inability to find him. A much better strategy is to leave one person to stay with the child where he is found, while another person finds and brings a CM to the child's location. My rule for being "lost" anywhere is that the minute you realize you can't see your adult, you stop moving, stay where you are and do not leave that place in the company of any adult other than the one you came with. As a rule, we teach our kids that adult strangers who are willing to stay with you in a public place and wait for your grownups are safe, while those who try to talk you into going somewhere with them are probably not safe. I know that anytime I cannot find my child in public (though I've never misplaced him at WDW) my first action is to carefully retrace my steps, and notify an employee if I see one along the way. I'm not going to initially think to look in a place where I did not previously go.

As to phone numbers on children, yes, they will call the number if the child has one on him. However, they are not allowed to remove a child's clothing to look for ID, so make sure it is visible on the outside of clothing if the child cannot be trusted to hand over an ID card kept in a pocket.

 

[rgmartin]

We also did the "dog tag"s and matching shirts. But on our first morning, as soon as we arrived at the parks, I asked a CM to let my DS's (4, 5, 9) see her name tag. I explained to them to look for anyone with a tag just like hers. She thanked me and said she wishes more parents would take the time to do that. With so many different uniforms, I wasn't sure if my boys would get confused.

 

[steelfish535]

Can you put all the kids in matching color shirts each day? Maybe even the same color as yours?
The digital picture idea is another good one.
We pointed out what CM's looked like and said it was very important to find one if my DD got lost. We told her to go to the nearest thing (ride, store, restaurant) and tell a CM she was lost.
She is a wanderer, and we never had a problem. Stress to them how important it is to stay with a parent at ALL TIMES and maybe even tell them what can happen if they get lost?

 

[gianna2006]

"Would you tell me if the idonme is easy to pull off? My boys will be almost three when we go next month. I'm afraid they'd get bored and try to pull them off."


The idonme bracelets go on and off like a regular bracelet, and your boys will be able to remove them. This is why we use them as ankle bracelets. It's a little harder to get them off your ankle without mom or dad seeing what they are doing. Also, they are more out of sight - the kids tend to forget they're wearing them.

 

[Gdad]

Soe good advice here. My DD - then 5 I think - became concerned about what happens if she gets seperated. Next time we went to DW we made a little game of spotting CM's in different areas (different uniforms) and she picked up understanding who they were in no time.

 

[leoky]

I haven't checked into other methods of id's, but my number one concern is that the ID was durable. So, while at a store tonight, we went by a small machine that engraves luggage tags/dog tags. We didn't want the kids wearing a little "dog bone" tag around, so we opted for the luggage tag. It was a small rectangle shape of about 1" X 2 1/2". It allowed up to 4 or 5 lines of text, so a lot of info could be put on them. Ours printed out like,

If I'm Found, Please Call
Name1 555-555-5555
Name2 555-555-5555

I plan to double zip-tie these to a belt loop each day. They should be out of the way, slightly hidden under untucked shirts, and can't be easily removed by our DD3 and DS2. Best of all, with it being thick aluminum, it would take a metal grinder to distort the lettering.

We have never lost our children, and I really don't want the first time (and I'm sure they will eventually get away at some point in life) to be in WDW. We leave in two days, and I'm trying to think of all these small things to help prevent a bad situation from getting worse. I also plan to take pictures of them each morning to verify their clothing, as others have mentioned above. Some may think there would be no way they could forget what their children are wearing, but in a stressful situation, you might find you can remember very little!

 

[crisi]

We use Sharpie markers and just write on the kids. This was discovered after we lost the tags. The next trip I made tags again - and they got lost again. By the third trip it was just Sharpies. But I'm cheap.

We introduce our kids to "Mickey's Friends." Staying on site, we usually stop a housekeeper - otherwise, we grab a photographer on Main Street. They have WHITE nametags and if you get lost, you find one of Mickey's Friends.

Now they are older and we have them memorize Dad's cell phone number.

 

[LisaFB]

Do any of these ID tags hold a TON of info? I"m asking because my son has severe multiple food allergies. He'll be 2 when we go in Oct so he won't be old enough to know what he can and can't eat. I'd be nervous that someone would offer him food and he'd have a life threatening reaction. He actually has at least 20 allergies, but I'd want to list at least the main ones.