Five minutes before leaving
- Take a photograph of the child that morning, in the clothes they are wearing. Describing a child under pressure is harder than it sounds, and "blue coat, red wellies" in a photograph on a phone is worth more than any description.
- Write a mobile number on the child's forearm in biro, or put a card in a pocket. This is the single most useful thing on the list, because a small child who cannot recite a number can show an arm. A wristband with a number works too, and some lifeguarded beaches hand them out.
- Agree a meeting point on arrival — something unmissable and fixed, named out loud and pointed at, not "by the entrance".
- Dress them memorably where it is practical. A bright coat or hat in a crowd is easier to spot and easier to describe.
- Teach them the real names. A child who knows a parent only as Mummy cannot help anyone. The full name and, if they are old enough, a mobile number.
What to teach the child
The instinct of a lost child is to go and look for the adult, and that is what turns a short separation into a long one — two people moving through a crowd in search of each other are much harder to reunite than one moving and one still.
So the thing to teach, and to repeat until it is dull, is:
- Stop immediately. Do not go looking. Stand still and shout.
- Shout the parent's actual name, not "Mum", which a crowd will not turn round for.
- Find someone behind a counter. This is the useful refinement of the usual advice. Rather than teaching a child to avoid all strangers and leaving them with nobody to approach, teach them to look for a person in uniform, or behind a till, desk or counter — someone who works there and is not going anywhere. In a shop, a checkout. In a park, a ride operator. On a beach, a lifeguard.
- Never leave the building, the park or the area, and never go to a car park, with anyone at all.
It is worth being conscious of the tension here. "Stranger danger" taught too firmly produces a child who hides from the very people who could help them. What children need is not a rule against adults but a rule about which adult.
In the moment
Two things, in this order.
Tell staff straight away. Not after ten minutes of looking. Large venues — theme parks, shopping centres, museums, leisure centres — have established procedures for a missing child, often including watching the exits, and those procedures only start when someone is told. The instinct to search alone first feels active and is the thing that wastes the time that matters.
If there is water nearby, say so first and check it first. A pond, a lake, a boating pool, the sea, a fountain. It is the one place where minutes change the outcome, and it is the first place to look rather than the last.
When giving a description, lead with clothing from the shoes up rather than with hair and eye colour, because that is what is visible in a crowd from behind. Height relative to an adult's waist or chest is more useful than an estimate in centimetres.
And afterwards
The urge on being reunited is to let out the fear as anger, and a child who has just been frightened and then shouted at learns that getting lost means being in trouble — which makes them less likely to approach anyone next time, or more likely to hide. Whatever it costs in the moment, the reunion is better handled as relief.
Places with their own quirks
- Theme parks. Ride queues separate families routinely. Agree what happens if one person is still in a queue when the others come off, and note that height restrictions mean a child may be turned away at the front of a queue — worth checking the limits, in centimetres, before joining it.
- Beaches. The hardest environment, because everything looks the same, landmarks move with the tide and the water is right there. Set up by a fixed landmark on land rather than a windbreak, and use a wristband scheme where one is offered.
- Festivals and shows. Crowds move, and a meeting point agreed in daylight may be unrecognisable after dark. Pick something lit.
- Stations and transport. Teach a child who finds themselves alone on a train or platform to stay on the train to the next stop and tell a member of staff, rather than getting off into an unfamiliar station alone.
What to have in the bag
Separate from the lost-child plan, a day out with children goes better with a bag containing water, something to eat, any medicines anyone in the family takes, a change of clothes for a small child, and a few plasters and antiseptic wipes. Sun protection if there is any prospect of sun, and that is covered under summer safety for children.
Two corrections to older advice worth noting. Antibiotic cream is not available over the counter in the UK, so the thing to pack is an antiseptic cream or wipes. And the emergency number here is 999, or 112, not 911 — which turns up in a surprising amount of otherwise sensible material written for an American readership.