OK - Twin toddler girls die in hot car after family member forgets to drop them off at daycare - Sep 8, 2024

[LadyL]

Agreed. There was a case in Australia where a child care centre's own director forgot a child in the centre's bus and he died. This means that the director and the other educator spent the whole time yacking away to each other (or in stony silence? either way) and totally ignored the poor child the whole time. I think the same thing - parents and other carers, why are you not talking to your child/ren? Its how they learn to communicate! to have a conversation! Super frustrating

[bbm]

just one point - drivers should be focusing on the road and traffic, not necessarily having conversations IMO

 

[ChatteringBirds]

What I don't get is that in all of these cases, there cannot have been any talking/communication between the kids and the adult driver. Yes, kids fall asleep in cars on long drives but on the commute to and from daycare? I don't know any kid that didn't have a lot to say on those trips. How can you forget someone who talks to you during the trip?

Respectfully, some kids do sit quietly or rest on the drive to daycare. Not to mention many cases are babies and toddlers, nonverbal. No one is forgetting the "chatterbox" type kids in the car, but it's babies and toddlers in rear-facing seats who are forgotten.

 

[seasideForest]

Who forgets there's two other human beings in the vehicle with you, TWO dependent and helpless toddlers? Tips recommended to prevent you forgetting that fact...IMO, have a working brain.

Apparently it's not quite as easy as 'having a working brain'. You can google Forgotten Baby Syndrome and get a much better explanation than I can give you. I did read it, it made sense. It has a lot to do with brain.

My suggestion is more mindfulness and being grounded in the here-and-now as I wrote elsewhere on the thread. You can train that and that is possibly more the area of your brain that you need to train than your intellect. MOO

We rely more and more on machines of all types to help us, to jog our minds, to send alarms. That's a good thing in many ways, but it's not foolproof. The more we rely on that kind of thing, the less we use the parts of our brains that would take over these tasks, so they get under-used etc. Downwards spiral.
Very big MOO on this final point or rather my suggestion of something to think about, could very well be wrong.

 

[sunshineray]

Apparently it's not quite as easy as 'having a working brain'. You can google Forgotten Baby Syndrome and get a much better explanation than I can give you. I did read it, it made sense. It has a lot to do with brain.

My suggestion is more mindfulness and being grounded in the here-and-now as I wrote elsewhere on the thread. You can train that and that is possibly more the area of your brain that you need to train than your intellect. MOO

We rely more and more on machines of all types to help us, to jog our minds, to send alarms. That's a good thing in many ways, but it's not foolproof. The more we rely on that kind of thing, the less we use the parts of our brains that would take over these tasks, so they get under-used etc. Downwards spiral.
Very big MOO on this final point or rather my suggestion of something to think about, could very well be wrong.

I'm sorry, IMO if you're charged/obligated with looking after a child, be you parent, family member, friend, hired help...you don't get to have a syndrome explaining away just plain old negligence, again MO. If it turns out it was an older relative who may have memory problems, then tragically the parents should have had it set up to just make a phone call, how'd drop off go today? These are children, not eggs or milk you forgot and left to spoil in the car. There's no routine boring or busy enough not to have checks in place for whatever the situation, for our most precious cargo we'll ever have in life. All just my opinion.

 

[nao]

Moo..I forgot to drop off my child a few times. Even took the detour to the babysitters house but drove by. My son was in back seat, but in front facing seat. Eventually I would look in rear mirror n see his smiling face, he knew I had forgotten to drop him off again. But with a rear facing child seat, that scares me, I can totally see a problem, the not realizing your child is still in car. ..moo

 

[seasideForest]

I'm sorry, IMO if you're charged/obligated with looking after a child, be you parent, family member, friend, hired help...you don't get to have a syndrome explaining away just plain old negligence, again MO. If it turns out it was an older relative who may have memory problems, then tragically the parents should have had it set up to just make a phone call, how'd drop off go today? These are children, not eggs or milk you forgot and left to spoil in the car. There's no routine boring or busy enough not to have checks in place for whatever the situation, for our most precious cargo we'll ever have in life. All just my opinion.

Generally I agree with you. If you read some of my other posts on this thread, that ought to be clear. However, I was open and interested enough to read about Forgotten Baby Syndrome and it did open my eyes a little bit. That's why I suggested you might read it too.

imho it's useful to understand WHY something happens, especially if that why is something with a scientific base to it. There's a lot more research these days into what happens in the brain, so imo that's scientific base. Understanding that could help a parent have an additional helpful check in place. A check that has so far not been used because the parent didn't even think that that particular type of check could be helpful. As in, what you don't know, you don't know.

MOO