<p>[Busy</a> travelers forget toddler at airport, fly on - CNN.com](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/05/14/lost.in.airport.ap/index.html]Busy”>http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/05/14/lost.in.airport.ap/index.html)</p>
<p>Some people shouldn’t be allowed to have children. Or, at least, to travel with them.</p>
<p>Big country. (you can find just about everything if you look.) :rolleyes:</p>
<p>VeryHappy, I’m with you on this one. I thought that when I read the article this was going to be a case of a family with 12 kids. Multiple adults can’t keep track of ONE kid? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>the problems lies when it isn’t clear who is responsible.
A similar although much less severe situation occurred at my daughters co-op preschool.
Note the word- co-op.
Many parents were there, a ratio of about 4:1, yet one preschooler was left on the playground for an extended period of time, because no one had specific kids to keep track of.</p>
<p>When ever my other daughters school would do something, we would have specific kids, not just a general responsibility. When it is general and vague it is easy to assume that someone else is keeping track- especially when there might be waiting in lines and toddlers are bound to wander unless chained to an adult ( at least mine were that way)</p>
<p>Keeping track of young children is like herding cats and the way they bounce around it would be easy for three to seem like five or six.</p>
<p>It is wonderful that this story didn’t have a worse ending & how nice of the airline to pick up the tab for the flights.</p>
<p>Didn’t they already make a movie about this?</p>
<p>This scenario is often repeated with a lot of adults by a swimming pool, all figuring some one else is watching the kids.</p>
<p>Karen - true and tragic.</p>
<p>OK, even if I were running for the gate, I would KNOW who had my toddler! And when we boarded the plane, even if our seats were scattered, I would be looking around for my family members to see where their seats were and making sure my toddler was ok. In fact, I recently travelled with my teenagers and I knew where THEY were at all times - even though we were scatttered in the plane. </p>
<p>I’ve almost left my kids’ toys in airports, but NEVER my kid.</p>
<p>Seriously…if you can’t keep track of your child, don’t take them places!</p>
<p>I mean I know accidents happen, but really now.</p>
<p>That’s nuts.</p>
<p>I can actually understand what happened here, I think.
Family members separated, stress of going through the customs and arriving in your “new” country . My kids are older, way older, and I am frequently surprised that they still get lost at the airport, and they do travel a lot so they should know what to expect 
I have never lost mine, but I am what you would call an O/C parent who checks for her kids constantly.</p>
<p>After reading the article, I can almost imagine how this could happen even to reasonably sensible people. Almost.</p>
<p>Speaking as a mother, there is NO WAY this would ever have happened to me. I mean NO WAY. Not with a child less than 2 years old. </p>
<p>I do have some friends who were traveling in two cars and accidentally left one of their children at a highway rest stop. He was in the bathroom, and everyone assumed he was in the other car. But he was significantly older than 2. And there were two families mixed up among the cars and multiple kids.</p>
<p>My younger daughter- OMG- would not hold my hand, at times she would not be carried although she would rather be carried than hold my hand. Would not use one of those leashes although that was better than the hand because the hand was " hot".
She freaked in crowds.
For example when we were " running around the bases" during a kids day at a Seattle Mariners game, ( the crowd gets to run the bases before the game- but there isn’t much running), she pulled away from us and squirmed through the crowd when she was about five. A little kid can get through all those people, but try and get through a crowd when you are an adult.</p>
<p>I thought at the time, it was because she was excited, but I found out years later it was because she was freaked out by all the people and noise.</p>
<p>But ya- a little kid who didn’t have " issues" I probably would have been carrying just so they wouldn’t get squoosed</p>
<p>We do read about people who leave their kids in the car in a car seat, in very hot weather and go to work. Last year I think a principal and an college prof did that & both kids died. That I think is even less likely for me to do.how can you forget you put your kid in the car?</p>
<p>This scenario is often repeated with a lot of adults by a swimming pool, all figuring some one else is watching the kids.</p>
<p>Even when there is a lifeguard, adults need to be very vigilant around water.
I am concerned, because my daughter is a brand new lifeguard, and things happen so quickly.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine ever doing this either, as I was a super over-protective mom when my kids were young. However, I, too, can understand how it could happen, and the headline is a bit of a misrepresentation of what happened. It wasn’t like the parents boarded the plane together, got settled, took off, then thought “oops, we forgot the baby!” EK was right, it’s a case of not establishing who is responsible for having primary care of the baby at all times when they were in the airport.</p>
<p>we lost swimcat in disneyworld when she was 2 or 3. I saw her walking right behind her Dad and ‘assumed’ he ‘had her’. He reappeared a few minutes later without her having had no idea she was following him. Scariest and longest few minutes of my life until she reappeared crying holding the hands of an elderly English couple frantically scanning the crowd looking for us. It was a real lesson to us which luckily ended happily. After that we always actively and verbally communicated about who had what child.</p>
<p>And as karen said - it happens so frequently and tragically with backyard pools especially when there are several adults present and everyone ‘assumes’…</p>
<p>The story still kind of amazes me because of the time involved and they never realized the child was missing.</p>
<p>Again with my younger daughter, she was on a school field trip ( I wasn’t there- they didn’t usually use parents because they had very small classes)</p>
<p>They were in a building heading toward the door and D was walking in front with the lead teacher-the teacher apparently stopped and turned to address everyone else, and D kept going. when she realized that they weren’t with her, she wasn’t sure what door she had come out of but she would not talk to any adults that tried to help her, because she took " dont’ talk to strangers" to heart.</p>
<p>I don’t know how long that all actually lasted, but the teacher told me when I came to pick her up later- I was a little angry, and scared, because the teacher thought it was a good funny story, but all I could think about was what might have happened.</p>
<p>It isn’t that hard to assign buddies when on field trips. so at least one person is keeping track of one other person.</p>
<p>Places like Disney land might feel safe to the kids because they are gated and such but they are so big.
When my family went to disneyland and had to leave and my younger brother ran off and took the little boat to Tom Sawyers island- he just did not want to leave. I don’t remember it but he must have been about 8.</p>
<p>I always notice when parents are walking in front of the kids, instead of behind them or beside them. And hate to be sexist, but I’ve noticed it is more often the dads who assume the kids are just tagging along behind, but moms know kids often get distracted and stop to look at something. ( we just have more practice)</p>
<p>So many times I have had someone run up to me and grab my leg but then look up in alarm when they see I’m not their mom! But so cute ;)</p>
<p>I used to use a harness with a leash on my kid; she didn’t like the leash on her hand because she wanted to move it around. With the harness, she could “wander” for a distance, but I’d always know where she was. (She didn’t like the harness either, but I gave her no choice. And I learned to ignore the icy stares from people who thought I was terrible for “treating her like a dog.”)</p>
<p>As far as assigning buddies - the best way I’ve ever seen it done was to have the kids all stand in a circle and look to the right. Each was then responsible only for that kid on his or her right. Everyone was accounted for, and a pair of buddies couldn’t be overlooked!</p>
<p>I left one of mine at a jet ski beach. Everyone had gone sailing and wanted to jet ski, but I was focused in getting us all to a restaurant in time for our reservation. Getting everyone in the van and all of our stuff together was a feat in itself. We then argued the whole way to dinner, about jet skiing. When we got to the restaurant, everyone piled out to the restrooms. When we finally settled at the table, our second youngest was missing. Checked the restrooms, and the van, as I realized that in all the hub bub, I could not remember hearing his voice during the ride. So up we all got, back into the van, back to the jet ski place, where he was waiting for us. </p>
<p>Yep, felt like a jerk, and yes, we were jerks. We had dinner at McDonald’s that night. The one who was left behind, said to his brothers, “I got to jet ski.” The folks there running the jet ski concession, let him on their jet skis when they went out in the water.</p>
<p>We had dinner at McDonald’s that night. The one who was left behind, said to his brothers, “I got to jet ski.” The folks there running the jet ski concession, let him on their jet skis when they went out in the water.</p>
<p>hmm sneaky.
But the liability for taking a kid out seems to be um risky.</p>
<p>I think we could put a book together on " things that could have gone much worse"</p>