Six Simple Tips to Help Remember Your Child when Leaving a Vehicle, Home, or Anywhere Else

Six Simple Tips to Help Remember Your Child when Leaving a Vehicle, Home, or Anywhere Else

Please Do Not Forget Your Child when You Leave Anywhere

Recently, I heard a radio announcement reminding people not to leave children in cars unattended. The announcement mentioned that sometimes the baby is forgotten in the car unintentionally. Perhaps there are ways for concerned parents to remind them of the importance to keep children within eyesight or hearing range. 

As I thought about it more, I could see forgetting child when leaving anywhere could happen, e.g. leaving home, store, etc. 

This impressed me enough to study this topic and find out what could be done. First, I looked on the Internet to learn more about this topic. The search string I used was - (child OR baby OR infant OR babies OR children) (left OR unattended OR alone) (motor-vehicle OR car OR automobile). 

What I learned was that an unattended child is, at best, a bad idea. In many states it is illegal. One of the risks is the child getting too hot or too cold. The child might have a medical emergency unattended. The child might be kidnapped. The list goes on.

Here are some things that could be done to help you or others prevent a child from being forgotten in a vehicle: 

1. First, remember that your child is the most important possession that you have. Develop a routine, much like crossing a street, where you perform certain actions automatically.

2. To help remember your valuable child, put a valuable reminder that is very important to you in by the child as you enter the car. This could be a wallet, purse, cellphone, briefcase, etc.

3. Consider using hypnosis to introduce a strong suggestion to remember the child as you leave the car. You could see a hypnotherapist or use self-hypnosis to achieve this. Perhaps, a hypnotherapist could work with a group of concerned parents, all at one time. You might find a prerecorded hypnosis session suggesting remembering children when leaving anywhere.

4. Quite a few patents and patent applications relate to alarms or alerts to remind parents that a child has been left in the car. These products will soon find their way to market, if not there now. These should not be depended on as a primary reminder, though.

5. A few devices on the market give an alert when the child is out of range. These products are usually used within malls or other public places where a child might wander. These might be also helpful when you leave the car and go into a crowded place. Again, please do not depend too much on auxiliary devices to remember or keep track of children.

6. If you see an unattended child, call the police or the emergency hotline number, e.g. 911. Use your own judgment whether to take more emergency measures. 

Takeaways:

• Children do get hurt or die when unattended.
• As a parent or guardian there are preventive measures you can take.
• If you see an unattended child, you can do something about it, and remain anonymous.

For more information:

• "Where's baby? Look before you lock" campaign warns about the dangers of heatstroke for kids in cars
• Never Leave Your Child Alone in a Car
• Products to Alert Parents of a Child Left in a Car Seat Found to Be Unreliable

Disclaimer - Article is for information only and is not medical advice.