We Couldn’t Find Our Kid for 15 Minutes – Now I’m Terrified!

“We lost our son today for 15 mins. 1st time, and it was terrifying.”

So begins a post on our Raising Independent Kids Facebook group. Any parent can relate. (Recall that even the British Prime Minister – AND his security detail – once lost track of his daughter.)

We’re reprinting the mom’s post here and then some of the brilliant advice from…you! Our readers! For more, join the FB group!

The original poster, an “Anonymous Mom,” wrote:

“We lost our son today for 15 mins. 1st time, and it was terrifying. We’re at a big hotel/ indoor water park. He wanted to take the stairs to ‘race’ and see if he’d be faster than us in the elevator.

“He did it 3 times already, and we all arrived within seconds of each other. He’s almost 8yo and it’s 3 flights.

“We let him do things like walk home a few blocks on his own, go to the corner store, he never strays from his destination, we’ve talked about safety and cars and safe adults to ask for help etc. etc.

“In this case, the elevator took 20 extra seconds, so he thought we went to the water park, so he ran off to find us. We came down, called for him, went back up the stairs, down to the water park, back to the room, then asked security for help. He said most often, lost kids go to the water park, although we didn’t see him on our 1st pass.

“He had security check the cameras, which took a few min while my husband ran around the place, they found him going into the water park, and a minute later, we found him. To his credit, he even found the same table we were at yesterday, and after a few minutes of waiting, went to ask a lifeguard for help finding us. All of this to say,

“My husband and I both were super worried he got snatched on the stairs, DESPITE telling my brain how unlikely that is…. Do you temporarily dial back freedoms after an incident like that? Or supervise more? Just have more conversations? I’m just trying to get a handle on how I should be handling my feelings.”

Our wonderful community responded by generally pointing out that feeling terrified is not the same as facing a truly dangerous scenario. AND the boy was pretty sensible. AND there’s no such thing as being a parent and never feeling scared, so that’s not reason enough to take away his independence. Specifically:

MEGAN:

I had a similar experience last week and have been pondering a similar question since then…The thought I keep coming back to is that maybe it’s not inherently bad that I had a frightening experience… I think the best response is to accept that such fear will sometimes happen to me as a parent, and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean I need to do anything differently next time.

REBECCA:

It sounds like he made some good choices when things went awry. Staying put where you gathered previously, asking an employee for help. He didn’t panic, he didn’t go in the water or parking lot. Those are signs that he IS ready, and he CAN handle this.

BORBALA:

… We lost my sister when she was 5 in a foreign country. We were in Bulgaria and went into a bookstore. She stayed outside at the playground, but we could watch her through the window. Suddenly she wasn’t there anymore. We started looking for her everywhere; it turned out she thought we had left without her and went back to the hotel. She was waiting for us at the reception. That was like 18 years ago.

CHARLOTTE:

… Your job is to manage your feelings of worry and fear without putting them on your son’s shoulders.

 DANIEL:

If this is the first time experiencing you not being there when he arrived, he hasn’t dealt with it before. Assure him that you wouldn’t leave him behind when you agree upon a meeting place and let him know that you expect the same from him.

Let it go at that and move on.

MEGAN:

We lost our kiddo in Target when they were around 4. …It was super scary….

What I was able to focus on was that my kiddo…[was] just as scared as we were but still remembered what to do.

Focus on that. Nothing bad happened here other than a small judgment error and a communication mishap.

KAY:
Punishing him by dialing back on freedoms is not the way to respond, nor is supervising more. Kids are still kids and make mistakes. This was minor and just needs a plan for next time.

JAMIE:

I actually feel like you should feel encouraged after that, not scared! He was using logic/good sense the whole time; he stayed safe and handled things well…. This grew him, and it grew you.

When being independent and taking risks, it’s not that you’re sure nothing will go wrong; it’s actually that you hope just the right amount of something might go “wrong” that he will learn from it and be better off next time (and more and more each time until he’s a functional, healthy adult). That’s what happened. It’s so good for him and good for you!

CHELLI:

Making mistakes is part of the process.