Children Forgotten in the Car
I was reading through Dr. Laura’s blog recently and came upon this article called “Children ‘Forgotten’ in Overheated Cars.” I really had a hard time understanding how this could happen.
How could someone “forget” their child in the car and why would a parent leave his or her child in the car, especially if the weather outside is freezing cold or extremely hot? I just can’t grasp the concept of how a mother or a father could “forget” his or her child!
Some of the children who were forgotten in the cars even died. They weren’t all left by mothers or fathers, some were left by caregivers as well.
It is a reminder to parents and caregivers everywhere of how important and fragile these precious, little children are. Let’s take care of them – they depend on us!
On average 36 kids a year die from being forgotten in cars by their parents and Caregivers, I think we are up to 37 this year…. Yes, some idiots are just trying to save time and the hassle of taking the child out of their seat, but the vast majority of these deaths occur when the caregiver (mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, babysitter) just simply forget…..Oh and Yes!, Me and my husband have done it too, unloading groceries one day with the car parked in the garage, luckily!….. We are caring, loving, busy professional parents of 2 boys… In almost every case it is a caring professional parent that was on the cell phone or late for an appointment or preoccupied with some stupid task that forgot the child was sleeping in their seat. It easy to say that we are all perfect and this will never happen to me. Tell that to the 360 kids that have died in the last 10 years and the thousands of bereaved loving parents and relatives. How many near misses are there that result in trauma or injury? This is a real world problem and in most cases it is an accident….After this happened to me, my husband and I found something on the internet that called a Car Seat Monitor by Cars N Kids http://www.carseatmonitor.com It reminds us parents our child is in the car seat before exiting the car.. I bought two of them for peace of mind, not that we make a habit of leaving the kids in the car, but I use one every day and I highly recommend it. The monitor installs in about a minute to any car seat. It plays a short lullaby a few seconds after the car stops moving if a child is in their seat. This musical lullaby reminds the driver that the child is in their seat before they can exit the car. It also beeps a few times when the child climbs out of their seat on their own… If this mom had one, she probably would not being going through this horrible tragedy that happens on average, 36 times per year.
Concerned Parent!
Allison S