Reply to If people backed into parking spaces would they not forget their children?

Forum Index » Off-Topic

Reply to "If people backed into parking spaces would they not forget their children?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Agree with the pps. I'm not judging the people who this happens too but it just seems like I'm a society where I'll run back to the car in 5 minutes if I don't have my phone with me, how the f would I forget a human being?![/quote]

There's research on this and it turns out it's a matter of habit.  In virtually all of the cases, the parents who forgot their kids had a change of schedule.  That is, a different parent took drop-off duty, or went in a different order for some reason. So, let's say that every day you drive directly to work.  The one day you are supposed to drop your child off along the way, you are in a groove and forget.  If you've ever turned the wrong way based on habit, it's the same thing.

[/quote]

I wish I could find this interesting article I read on unconscious competence.  It listed some of the most newsworthy cases of parents forgetting their kids and then showed how unconscious competence was to blame.  Unconscious competence is basically you've performed a skill so many times and have developed such a pattern that you don't think while doing it and just perform it unconsciously.  Your brain doesn't need to devote resources to completing the task at hand, so it diverts those resources.  It's why you sometimes arrive at your destination and have zero recollection of how you got there or what happened during the drive.

It went hand-in-hand with a disruption in the normal routine of the parent who forgot the kid in the car.

In one case the dad as always the morning drop off parent because the mom had a longer commute and needed to leave very early.  One morning the mom was the drop off parent because her husband had to travel further for a meeting and left early.  Even though it was a planned switch and not something thrust on her at the last minute, unconscious competence took over when she started her commute and the next thing she knows, she's at work.  She goes on with her day and doesn't realize something is wrong until her husband calls after the day care contacted him about the missing kid.

I don't think backing in would really cause a significant change because as someone else stated, so many cars have backup cameras.  I like the idea of putting something important to your day in the back seat, such as your purse or briefcase.     [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics