Disturbing incident at Epcot last Thursday . . .

[kaytieeldr]

My dd was very clingy and I never had to worry about her running away. She holds on to the stroller or my hand when we walk anywhere. My now two year old ds is a darter. He sees something and snap, he is gone, just like that! We are working on teaching him to stay with us and are making progress but he still runs away. I don't like harnesses generally but you bet we will have one for WDW. I hope we don't need to use it but it is just too scary.

What about using something like this: http://www.keyringer.com/ ? Pin it inside his shirt, or pocket, or lace it into his shoe... I can see it working two ways: First, you should be able to hear the receiver when you activate the transmitter (which of course you won't let the kids near ), and you could also teach him that when that receiver sounds, he's to stop wherever he is and wait for you.
The above link is provided solely as an example; many companies make similar products - I found it by searching for KEY FINDER.

 

[Merriwind]

Regarding confusion between CMs and Guests. I believe it was Oprah (or similar show) where the "expert" they had on said to teach your kids to find a woman. It doesn't matter who they are, just find a woman (preferably a mother with kids but definitely a woman).

The rationale was that the number of women who are pedophiles or would take a child is so extremely low that this is the safest thing to do. Sometimes kids get confused about who is an "official" (i.e. CM, Police, etc.). Therefore, telling them to find a woman, no matter who it is, is the best course of action.

Don't know how true it is but it makes sense.

I haven't read past this post, but this imo is absolutely the best advice. Since my DD8 was very little, I have always told her that if she or mommy ever gets lost to find another mommy with kids, because mommies will always help children. I have never suggested a police office, CM, etc--too easy to fake, at least well enough to fool a kid. DD is still a hand holder and a very cautious child--thankfully, but we still review the "who do you go to for help if you are lost," question every so often.

I'm sure all turned out well for the lost little boy. Hopefully, he was obliviously enjoying Illuminations.

 

[JJClemson]

I just wanted to thank Janey for starting this post and everyone else who has contributed such useful information.

I am not a mother yet, but this is great info to remember. During my wedding at WDW next year, my bridesmaids and I are taking my little cousins (flowergirls and ringbeaer) to some character breakfast. I will definitely have a talk w/ the kids beforehand and have a buddy system in place.

I hope that little boy was found. What a scary story.

 

[MyGoofy26]

This is true i guess ,One year i heard an annnoucement concerning lost parents and would they come to a particular area.

If you heard an announcement, then something VERY serious happened. Disney will not "interrupt" other guests and force them back into "the real world" unless it's pretty much life or death. They have an extremely efficient system in place that allows them to avoid using public announcements unless it's "worst case scenario" or similarly urgent.

When I first learned this on my CP, I'd get chills everytime I did hear an annoucement. . . and there were a few in my 5 months there.

 

[brbenoit]

Your wife is right. Bullies and bores don't just happen. They are taught, as you've demonstrated.

You are absolutely right, I'm sold. It is perfectly acceptable to teach your children to call other children "puppies".

Here's the simple question... have you ever referred to another person publicly or privately in a manner that could be considered insensitive?

Of course it is easy to label a person a bully, without knowing them or anything about them. But that is not picking on a child or calling them a name?

 

[brbenoit]

Now back to regularly scheduled programming and the topic of the original post.

ANY parent can lose a child, it is unfortunate but it can happen to ANYBODY. What a person can do is minimize the chances of that happening and prepare your children on how to behave if it were to happen.

There are people who do not make these efforts, but that does not protect anyone else from it happening to them.

I was thinking about the statement that there would be 4 adults and only 1 child so there would be no chance of the child being lost. In this case, the most likely situation that a child would be lost would be each person thinking someone else watching the child. I would actually think that the most likely scenario where a child would be if it were 1 adult and 1 child.

 

[disneyheaven]

Such a scary story......but like so many of you have said...things like this do happen. I think just about every person has a memory of being "lost" as a child. Whether it be at the mall, the grocery store, or yes...even Disney World. It seems unfortunate that Disney staff was not doing more to help ease the familys anxiety. We can only hope that were was behind the stage stuff going on to solve this very scary problem. Thanks for posting. I am not a parent yet, but it must be a parents worst nightmare to loose a child. Hopefully everything worked out ok.

 

[chigirl]

Your children are in your field of vision at all times? Seriously? This is an honest question. You never look from them to check a wait time at WDW, or to speak to a castmember? Never take your eyes off them for a second, ever?

yes, they ARE!!!!
Why is this so hard to believe?
We go as a family, we stay together as a family.
If DS has to use the bathroom, DH goes w/him...if DD has to go, I go with her.
Call me paranoid, but my Grandmother stopped an abduction 10 years ago and I work daily in retail and have seen everything when it comes to neglect.

As far as "looking away from them", my DH keeps an eye on them when I don't...they don't live in a bubble, we live in suburban Chicago, but I am overly protective, sorry!

Did I have them on "leashes" when they were toddlers? No. Just simple hand-holding, that's it...
plus I am not claiming to be perfect or ABOVE anyone...I stated what I see every single day in my place of employment. Try running 80 code adams in 8 months, searching for 80 kids, and maybe you'll feel like I do: parents need to keep an eye on their kids 100% of the time.

 

[aterriq]

I have been blessed with twin DDs who are very well behaved.

However, I do have a cousin who would be a challenge for any parent. He should have been a toy tester because he could break all but his Tonka trucks. He was a big darter and had no fear. I would have pulled my hair out if my children were like him.

Sad to say but every time they have that plastic commercial where the mother says I don't think he'll live till ?, I think of him.

Now my cousin is older and actually more responsible. He got his though. He has two sons who act just like he did as a child.

 

[MagicMe]

Wow - I actually read all 13 pages of this thread. I was hoping that someone might have posted of seeing the family reunited.

The first several pages were very informative (not for me as a parent as my two are grown) for future trips with nieces, nephews and at some point grandchildren.

It's a shame that the last several pages turned into an argument between parenting. All I can really say is no one is infallible and having raised two boys (one very very active), I would never presume to interfer with anyone else's parenting unless I saw a child being abused. We're all responsible for raising kind well adjusted adults (hopefully) and there are a multitude of ways to get them to that place (thank god since each child is so very different). Even the way I parented beween my two boys was different as they each had very different personalities.

Thanks to all that have posted regarding their experiencing or seeing a lost child situation. Everyone's story can teach us!

 

[heidica]

Such a scary story......but like so many of you have said...things like this do happen. I think just about every person has a memory of being "lost" as a child. Whether it be at the mall, the grocery store, or yes...even Disney World. It seems unfortunate that Disney staff was not doing more to help ease the familys anxiety. We can only hope that were was behind the stage stuff going on to solve this very scary problem. Thanks for posting. I am not a parent yet, but it must be a parents worst nightmare to loose a child. Hopefully everything worked out ok.

My childhood "lost" memory is I got lost in the Smithsonian. I was 7 years old. I was looking at a space capsule and was really fascinated by it and my parents and brother starting walking on to the next exhibit and I just stayed. After I was done looking, I turned and saw that my parents weren't there and started freaking out, a security guard quickly came to me and it was only a few moments after that that my parents were running back to me. Of course they thought I had started walking with them. I didn't listen when they told me to come.

Also, last June at WDW after coming out of Buzz Lightyear we lost one of the kids in our group, he was 5 1/2 at the time (I was travelling with my girlfriend and her 3 kids). It was less 5 minutes that we lost him, but we were pretty frantic. It is very chaotic when you come out of Buzz and Tomorrowland was pretty busy. He just got swept away by the crowd exiting the ride. We found him standing a few yards away from the exit crying, but he was ok. We got to him before anyone figured out he was lost. After that he listened to us about holding someone's hand at all time. He obeyed with no complaint after that. Again, it only took a second to get separated in the chaos. We are currently planning a trip next August and I really like all of the different suggestions for placing ID's or other identification on the kids and the instructions to give kids on what to do if they do get lost. I have been writing them down and will be using them in the future.

 

[Sammie]

I would bet on the fact that the vast majority of "lost parents", are not because an older sibling was left to watch or that the parent was distractedly shopping "somewhere" or any other "parental neglectful" reason. It only takes a SECOND in a crowd. That's not long. To think that it will never happen to you is ridiculous, since anything can happen to anyone, no matter how you try to avoide something, no matter how you plan, no matter how caring, loving or compulsive you are!!!

Read the accounts in here in this thread. These are not parents who "left" their kids, who were not "watching" their kids ir who were off and distracted.

I'm an empty nester. My children are raised and in college. This is no easy task, and while I thankfully never "lost" one anywhere, there are many other things that happened that no matter how loving, caring and "watchful" I was, scary things happened. I was a stay at home mom from the birth of the first one to the last one graduating from high school. I previously was an RN and read extensively about child development etc. and what to do and what not to do etc. In other words, I don't think I could have done better, and still scary stuff happened that I thought would NEVER happen to me because I was SUCH a good careful mother. Yah right!!! IT HAPPENS!!!

Raising children is no easy task and to point fingers with a "better than thou" attitude IS heart-less AND naive.

Never did I say raising children was easy, never did I say parents who have misplaced a child were bad parents, I simply said you can not say it happens to everyone, because it doesn't.

And who is pointing fingers, maybe you.

 

[Simba22]

we lost my brother at the mall once...he was probably about five and was just being a kid, hiding in one of the clothes racks. He came out from under the clothes, didn't see us and assumed we left to go look for him...so he walked right out of the store and through the mall. My sister and I were older so we were allowed to go look around the store without my mom being right there with us (ironically we were in the disney store!). My mom, the whole time, thought that my brother was right next to her but it was my sister. When she realized that my brother wasn't with her, and wasn't with me she FREAKED! They actually closed the mall - no one could get in or out. Then all the sudden, here comes my brother running back up the to the Disney Store with a Security Guard behind him. Thankfully he wasn't gone all that long but it's nice to know that people take this kind of thing seriously.

 

[Eeyore2003]

Never did I say raising children was easy, never did I say parents who have misplaced a child were bad parents, I simply said you can not say it happens to everyone, because it doesn't.

And who is pointing fingers, maybe you.

I'm sorry if you misunderstood what I meant. You just said that you didn't think the previous poster was naive for thinking it would never happen to her. I was mainly again stating that her comment made it seem that parents who HAD lost a child were bad parents and this would never happen to her since she was such a better parent AND I felt for that reason HER comment was heartless and in my opinion it still was naive to think it could never happen to her.

Honestly, she probably won't, as won't most of the people here, of course it doesn't happen to everyone and no where did I ever state that. I guess I just feel the best policy is to "Never say never". I guess I was pointing my finger at her statement, but I never accused her of being a sub standard parent, which I'm SURE she isn't or that her parental judgement is lacking, which I'm SURE it isn't.

You gave reasons why you agreed with her and my statement was my reasons for disagreeing with her. I was not accusing you of anything or pointing fingers at you for anything you said. SHE was the one that started her thread "I may be heartless", and I said I thought it was heartless of her to make other parents feel bad, and even though I doubt it she will ever lose a child, IMO it's best never to say never because you never know. This was not directed at you at all. I'm sorry if you took it that way.

 

[NotUrsula]

The most important thing about safety reins (their proper name, BTW), is that they not only protect your child in situations where your attention is momentarily distracted, but in situations where the adult may become disabled. The poster who mentioned her mother tripping as they left EPCOT is one example, but I have another, even better, one. (I've posted this story on the DIS before, but it bears repeating for this discussion).

Safety reins have been used in Europe for centuries, and they are still pretty standard in cities whenever people go out on foot with young children in areas that have heavy traffic. This particular incident happened before I was born, in 1944 in fact, but it is still quite relevant. My mother was going out to do her grocery shopping, with my then 4 yo sister walking with her, wearing safety reins, and my brother, who was an infant, in a stroller (more specifically, a big, traditional pram.) The street they were walking down was quite steep, and they were going downhill. The traffic was very heavy. It had been raining, and as they came to a crossroad, my mother tripped as she stepped off the curb, and her feet went right out from under her. Her left leg broke, and she struck her head on the curb and knocked herself out. Naturally, she lost her grip on the stroller, and it careened into the traffic, gaining speed as it rolled downhill. My sister, terrified, tried to break loose and run after the stroller, but she could not because the reins she was wearing were looped around my mother's wrist. Cars started crashing into things as they swerved to avoid the stroller. Bystanders summoned an ambulance to take my mother to a hospital, but in the confusion no one realized that the baby in the stroller belonged to the lady who was hurt, and by the time the stroller was stopped and my brother rescued, it was several hundred yards away. As he was (miraculously) unhurt and no one was claiming him, my brother was taken to a police station. My mother, by this time awake, was frantic, of course, and my father was found at work and sent to try to find the baby. It took him several hours to discover what had happened to my brother. The bright side in all this (aside from the fact that no one was hit by a car), is that because of the reins, my sister stayed right by my mother's side, safe.

I've tripped and fallen at theme parks, and I once fell down the entry stairs of a busy London Underground station. It can happen; you *can* get hurt when you are responsible for your small children.

 

[Disney? Again?]

Well, I too read everything hoping that at least the "happy ending" would be the reunited family.

We visit WDW often, and I think that Disney has a procedure for everything and most especially "lost parents". I know that when my family members worked at Disneyland, they had a number of things that they knew to do and watch for, etc.

We had a child in a large group of ours wander off during the fireworks at a non-Disney amusement park, and it is horribly frightening. What made it worse was that we could not even FIND any security or employees to help us make sure he hadn't been swept out in the rush to leave after the show. It took us more than 1/2 hour to find anyone working there -- that was almost as scary as losing him. Happy ending, we did find him. He was a bit older and his parents didn't have him in a hand hold or anything else...you usually think the younger ones are the ones to watch but I guess other children can become distracted and then disoriented in a new place. I hold my child all during the shows, and even though he wants to shrug me off now that he's older, I tell him too bad. I am never going through that again!

 

[MermaidMommy]

I have to agree with the previous posters who advised taking a digital picture of your child every morning. This summer, I was at a Florida beach, when a 6 year old disappeared at the beach. She wasn't with our group, but her (obviously) frantic parents were working with everyone at the resort trying to find her. They made repeated announcements over a microphone with her description, posted a description of her at the pool entrance, and had all kinds of employees running all over. We were there for 1.5 hours and she still hadn't been found after 3 false alarms where they announced she had been found, and it was all the guests and employees were talking about. At this point, everyone assumed that she had either been kidnapped or, most likely, drowned, especially when we saw search and rescue, fire, and police departments fanned out searching the beach. Finally, everyone starts hearing rumors that a police officer found her wandering WAY down the beach and was bringing her back. It was like something out of a movie: the entire beach, everyone at the pools and restaurants, employees, hotel guests on balconies, literally everyone stopped and turned to watch for the officer. We see a police ATV coming towards us with a little girl, and the entire crowd starts clapping and cheering, the mom grabs the little girl, the dad goes to hug the cop and collapses on him. It was so heart-wrenching, it brought me to tears.

The moral of my long story is that the description of the bathing suit the girl was wearing was COMPLETELY wrong, not even close to what she actually had on. I'm sure that in their understandble panic, the parents could have forgotten which suit the girl had on, or could have miscommunicated with rescue workers. A photo would have eliminated that confusion, and perhaps could have helped find her more quickly.

I had my own 6 year old daughter with me while this was unfolding, and there was no way to prevent her from knowing what was happening. She asked many, many questions about the situation -- will they find her, how did she get lost, what happens if they don't find her -- and it really gave me an opportunity to impress upon her the importance of knowing what she should do if it ever happened to her. It also made her realize why we're so insistent on her not wandering off from us, since she saw what the consequnce could be. It turns out that the family was leaving the beach all together, mom and dad in front with the two kids behind, and the little girl just fell behind somehow and walked off before the parents realized she wasn't behind them anymore. Scary.

 

[faindrops27]

Wow, nice way to call everyone on here who has shared their story (stories in which, you'll note, they did nothing wrong) bad parents. Okie dokie. Glad it'll never happen to you, honestly, but have a plan in place in case it does.

Now, we are playing putting words in people's mouths. Eh? Where have I said, anywhere, that these parents are bad?? I simply stated, and stick to this fact. The child was lost due to the parent/parents, caregiver, being distracted. There is no honest way under God's green earth. I would ever, let my 5 year old wander off, unattended. Really add that up, and ponder it for a minute. A 5 year old lost? Only equals, distracted parent/parents. Simple.

My point. I will not lose my child simple. So, thank you. But, I will not need a plan. My plan, of watching my children, at all times. Has worked out just fine thus far. But I do have a plan for you. Please do not add words, to the things I have typed. I would so much appreciate it. Thank you.

 

[faindrops27]

Add faindrops27 not losing his/her kid to the list of death and taxes as the only things that are 100% certain.

Sorry, but nothing in life is 100% certain. As much as you'd like to think you have total control over your kids, it doesn't work that way. Assigning blame or somehow holding yourself out as better than others because you are that in control is not helpful.

Dont make a mountain out of a mole hill. In quote.

Are we talking about me being in control of life(Death, taxes)? Or are we talking about, me watching my children? Lets not swerve roads. Making zigzags, and slashes. Let's stick to the topic. Shall we? Please try to, I am sure, if you do. You will see things much more clear. Hold your breath now, count to 10, and take a deep breath. Ok, now. Please let's just stick to the topic

Now, point again is this. I watch my children, at all times. Yes. AT all times. It is possible not to lose a child. Really, it is. If said parent was watching, thier child, how would they get lost? The parent was distracted. End point.

 

[faindrops27]

You are naive because you think it could never happen to you.

Oh another niave post. How, shall we say. Original! Superhuman, for keeping my eyes on my children?