Anonymous wrote:Honestly, the most effective fix is the easiest.

It's the shoe trick. Seriously. ALL DRIVERS who drive with kids in a car (including parents, grandparents) should immediately upon entering the car, take off their shoe and throw it in the back. Act as if it is fundamental to driving - as though the car won't start until you do. Pretend it's the law.

No one is going anywhere far without a shoe on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one ever forgets until the weather gets warm. We never see this in Winter months.

Because heat related deaths don’t happen in cold cars. There was, however, a story this past winter about a child dying of hypothermia while sleeping in a vehicle with the rest of the family because they were homeless.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one ever forgets until the weather gets warm. We never see this in Winter months.

People forget their kids year round. When the weather is colder they come out and find a living child, and it doesn’t make the news.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is so tragic. I'm so sorry for the people who lost their precious 2 year old.

Of course it could happen to anyone. It's not like some people have an autopilot part of their brains and other people don't. Claiming that you would never do this is understandable . . . it's such a tragic and horrifying way to lose a child. But you're just trying to reassure yourself that you're safe in a world where sometimes horrible things happen out of nowhere. It's much more useful to take that energy and put it into buying a sensor that will alert you if you leave a child in their carseat.

I don’t need an alarm. I am 100% confident I would never ever leave a kid in the car. Ever.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is so tragic. I'm so sorry for the people who lost their precious 2 year old.

Of course it could happen to anyone. It's not like some people have an autopilot part of their brains and other people don't. Claiming that you would never do this is understandable . . . it's such a tragic and horrifying way to lose a child. But you're just trying to reassure yourself that you're safe in a world where sometimes horrible things happen out of nowhere. It's much more useful to take that energy and put it into buying a sensor that will alert you if you leave a child in their carseat.

I don’t need an alarm. I am 100% confident I would never ever leave a kid in the car. Ever.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who goes home and forgets their kid in the car for several hours?

I'm in this camp. I can't understand how you forget a kid, but I can 100% see my husband doing this (my kids are teens) if he was in charge of pick up/drop off. He has ADHD and gets very distracted.

Same situation here.

Anonymous wrote:Youngins don't know recent DC history?


https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html


Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?
March 8, 2009

Anonymous wrote:I remember seeing a recommendation that preschools or daycare call the parent is a child has not been dropped off on time but I don’t think that ever became standard practice.

The shoe or bag in back is a good system.

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Anonymous wrote:Who goes home and forgets their kid in the car for several hours?

It sounds to me like you have not read “Fatal Distraction.” It won Gene Weingarten a Pulitzer. Once you read it, you won’t forget it.

https://mitchellhamline.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2012/01/Fatal-Distraction.pdf

+1
Yes. It could happen to you. That piece is so moving and should be required reading for everyone.

Nope. I am 100% certain it could never happen to me. Ever. You don’t just forget a child.

This can be a very dangerous belief. The brain science is clear that this can happen to the most attentive and loving parents. The right situation and order of events can make this a possibility for almost anyone. Being self-aware enough to realize that it indeed could happen to you might help you put the safeguards in place to reduce the likelihood. By just assuming you could never do this, you might not have the same vigilance. I am a super organized parent but I could still see how in the right scenario, this could be something that tragically could happen to me.

It's almost never the primary/default parent. Almost never.

Correct. That’s why it’s always men doing this. Never women. This is not a parenting problem, this is a men problem. Men simply cannot be trusted around children. None of them. Not even my own sons. Men are either shaking babies to death because they’re mad at them for crying, or forgetting them in a hot car because they had to go play video games or watch pornography, or if the children survive long enough, and have the misfortune of having been born a female in Trump’s American, fathers will start raping their daughters at age 9-10. Men are vile awful creatures.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is so tragic. I'm so sorry for the people who lost their precious 2 year old.

Of course it could happen to anyone. It's not like some people have an autopilot part of their brains and other people don't. Claiming that you would never do this is understandable . . . it's such a tragic and horrifying way to lose a child. But you're just trying to reassure yourself that you're safe in a world where sometimes horrible things happen out of nowhere. It's much more useful to take that energy and put it into buying a sensor that will alert you if you leave a child in their carseat.

I don’t need an alarm. I am 100% confident I would never ever leave a kid in the car. Ever.

Anonymous wrote:This is so tragic. I'm so sorry for the people who lost their precious 2 year old.

Of course it could happen to anyone. It's not like some people have an autopilot part of their brains and other people don't. Claiming that you would never do this is understandable . . . it's such a tragic and horrifying way to lose a child. But you're just trying to reassure yourself that you're safe in a world where sometimes horrible things happen out of nowhere. It's much more useful to take that energy and put it into buying a sensor that will alert you if you leave a child in their carseat.