It’s every parent’s worst nightmare.
You’re shopping at the grocery store or Target or even playing at the playground when all of a sudden you cannot locate your child.
It can happen to the best of us. Kids are sneaky and curious and faster than you think.
One parenting blogger named Jess Martini provided some helpful advice for finding your child:
“Do not start silently looking, you wanna look loudly, and what I mean by that is you start shouting their description while you look,” Jess stated in the now-viral TikTok video.
One Australian mom, after losing sight of her son at a Kmart store in the NSW Hunter Region, remembered Jess’ advice. She shared the ordeal on an Australian Facebook group, describing it as the “scariest 10 minutes of her life.”
“One friend ran to the entry immediately and alerted the staff member to not let a boy of his description leave the store. Even if he was with an adult. Another friend searched the area he was last seen,” she wrote on Facebook.
As the woman frantically searched the store, she remembered Jess’s advice and began shouting the description of her child: “I’m missing a little boy, he’s wearing a yellow shirt and has brown hair. He’s two years old and his name is Nathan.”
“I had every adult around me on alert. They all threw aside what they were looking at and started searching too,” she wrote.
@jesmartini PSA that I feel can save kids and I’ve used- if your child goes missing in public #momsoftiktok #PSA #nojudgement #fyp #4up #besafe #parentsoftiktok
Luckily, Nathan was found.
“I turned back the way I came and there he was. A man had walked past him after hearing me calling out,” the woman said. “If I hadn’t have been calling out, that man would have had no clue that I was looking for Nathan. Nate would have walked past him and he wouldn’t have blinked. So to all parents out there, if your child goes missing, do not search in silence or just call out their name. Shout out loud and clear.”
Other parents and concerned citizens jumped in with comments and tips of their own:
Lead image: TikTok