If you leave your child alone in your vehicle

sky

Tue, May 31 2016, 9:47 am

EnnuiGalore wrote:

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Um, yes it does.

Its the same memory. No one's memory is perfect.

All it takes is a sleepless night and a change of schedule for someone to make the biggest mistakes.

I think the biggest mistake someone can make is to think that it could not happen to them.

From the Washington Post article:

Quote:

The wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do it. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded and to the fanatically organized, to the college-educated and to the marginally literate. In the last 10 years, it has happened to a dentist. A postal clerk. A social worker. A police officer. An accountant. A soldier. A paralegal. An electrician. A Protestant clergyman. A rabbinical student. A nurse. A construction worker. An assistant principal. It happened to a mental health counselor, a college professor and a pizza chef. It happened to a pediatrician. It happened to a rocket scientist.

Quote:

“Memory is a machine,” he says, “and it is not flawless. Our conscious mind prioritizes things by importance, but on a cellular level, our memory does not. If you’re capable of forgetting your cellphone, you are potentially capable of forgetting your child.”

Quote:

On the day Balfour forgot Bryce in the car, she had been up much of the night, first babysitting for a friend who had to take her dog to an emergency vet clinic, then caring for Bryce, who was cranky with a cold. Because the baby was also tired, he uncharacteristically dozed in the car, so he made no noise. Because Balfour was planning to bring Bryce’s usual car seat to the fire station to be professionally installed, Bryce was positioned in a different car seat that day, not behind the passenger but behind the driver, and was thus not visible in the rear-view mirror. Because the family’s second car was on loan to a relative, Balfour drove her husband to work that day, meaning the diaper bag was in the back, not on the passenger seat, as usual, where she could see it. Because of a phone conversation with a young relative in trouble, and another with her boss about a crisis at work, Balfour spent most of the trip on her cell, stressed, solving other people’s problems. Because the babysitter had a new phone, it didn’t yet contain Balfour’s office phone number, only her cell number, meaning that when the sitter phoned to wonder why Balfour hadn’t dropped Bryce off that morning, it rang unheard in Balfour’s pocketbook.

amother

Smokey

Tue, May 31 2016, 9:58 am

I am one of the most type A personalities out there. I am one of those people who would not forget my kids.

I would NEVER rely on this though because it can happen to ANYONE even backside retentive me.

Therefore I have a number of safeguards in place.

My husband and I instituted a system where we each have an alarm on our phone set to 9 am. Whoever is dropping off the kids needs to text the other person that we did drop off. We need to send two texts messages because of two drop offs. the 9 am alarm is a reminder for the other parent to double check that they received the two text messages and if they did not get the messages then they check in with the other to make sure drop off happened.

Even with my crazy system I am still nervous and it is my worst nightmare.

Chayalle

Tue, May 31 2016, 10:19 am

It was my biggest fear when DD was born - being that it had been 7 years since I had to be responsible for a new baby, I was terrified that I'd slip back into previous mode and forget her. Every time I took her in the car, my purse went beside her. DH is yeshivish and wears a hat in public, so his hat went beside her if he did the driving.

I'm not big on calling people names, but I have met IDIOTS (actually, that's too kind) who still think it's okay to run into a store and leave their kids in the car. Those people are of a different category, and they need all these videos that Chaveirim and others put out, letting them know that it's not worth it, not even for a minute.

I also want to mention how important it is to close your car properly when it's parked on your driveway so your child cannot get inside. I have met people whose children got out of the house and into the car - a favorite, exciting place for a toddler or young child - and they cannot always get out. I don't have to tell you how dangerous that could be, so lock your car against your child.

m in Israel

Tue, May 31 2016, 11:02 am

I also was always sure "it can't happen to me" whenever I heard these stories -- and then once it did. I had come back from shopping and parked outside my building and was down the steps and at my front door by the time I remembered that my daughter was home from gan that day and had come shopping with me! As others have said, it is much more common when there is a change in routine (I usually don't have kids with me when I go shopping), although it could happen at any time. BH I realized so quickly -- it was only a minute or two, but it was a real wake up call to me not to be complacent.

In one of the recent People's Speak there was a story about a babysitter who realized a specific kid didn't show up. She had been babysitting for this family for a few kids and knew that the mother ALWAYS called if the child would be late or not coming, so she got nervous and went through a lot of effort to contact the parents (father wasn't answering his cell, the mother was a teacher during class so she had to go through a whole bunch of round about effort to reach them) and in the end it turned out the kid was left in the car and BH was found in time. He ended up making the point that this is also a good safeguard -- make sure that babysitters/gannim know that you will let them know if your child is supposed to be late/absent so if they don't hear from you and the child isn't there they can alert you that something is wrong.

sky

Tue, May 31 2016, 11:41 am

amother wrote:

In the story I quoted about a women named Balfour they actually mention in the article that she is a Type-A personality. so as you say it can happen to any personality type.

Quote:

Raelyn Balfour is what is commonly called a type-A personality. She is the first to admit that her temperament contributed to the death of her son, Bryce, two years ago