If Your Child Gets Lost: What Every Child Should Know, and How to Actually Teach It

Most of us have said some version of it.

Stay where I can see you. Do not wander off. If you get lost, find someone and tell them.

But here is the question.

It sounds funny until you think about how quickly a child can be separated from you in a crowd.

The good news is that this does not have to become one big frightening conversation. You can teach her everything she needs in small, ordinary moments at home. The part that matters most is not the teaching. It is the practising.

What should your child actually know?

What she can hold on to depends on her age, but over time you are working towards these.

The age guide

There is no birthday on which a child suddenly knows all of this. Children develop differently, so treat this as a guide rather than another thing to measure yourself against.

At the younger end, repetition matters far more than trying to get an entire address memorised in a weekend. For a very busy outing, a small card kept inside a pocket or bag can help. Keep it somewhere secure rather than on display, and do not put her full details anywhere visible to everybody around her.

Which emergency number to teach

So how do you get her to remember any of it?

This is the part that actually matters.

Please do not sit a five year old down with your phone number and tell her to memorise it before Saturday. You will both be exhausted and it will not work.

Try these instead.

1. Turn your phone number into a song

Children remember songs unreasonably well. She cannot remember where she put her shoes five minutes ago but she knows every word of something she heard twice.

Use that. Sing your number to a simple tune, or clap it out in groups, and keep the same rhythm every time. Then ask her at random moments what Mummy's number is. Eventually you want her able to say it without the song.

2. Make it a family quiz

Not an exam. Just questions dropped into ordinary life. In the car, what is Daddy's full name. At dinner, what street do we live on. Walking into a shop, if you could not find me in here, what would you do?

Five minutes here and there beats one serious conversation she forgets by Thursday.

3. Role-play getting lost

This may be the single most useful thing on this list.

Say: pretend we are in the shopping centre and suddenly you cannot see me. What do you do?

Then let her answer. Do not jump in with the right answer. You need to hear what she genuinely thinks she should do, because that is what she will actually do.

Teach her to stay where she is rather than walking around searching, and to do what venue staff or security tell her.

4. Teach her what a helpful person looks like

Find an adult is far too vague.

Do it while you are actually out together instead. See the lady in the supermarket uniform? If you could not find me here, you could go to someone working at the till. See the security desk? That is somewhere you can ask.

At an airport, point out airline staff. At a theme park, show her the uniforms. Make it real while you are standing in the place.

5. Teach her the words for staying put

This is the one to give her word for word, because it protects her from the situation you are most worried about.

Then explain why. A person who is really helping will stay with her, or take her to the desk, or call you. Anybody who wants her to walk away somewhere quieter is not helping her.

She does not need to understand the reasoning to use the sentence. She just needs the sentence.

6. Teach the information and when to share it

We spend so long telling children not to tell strangers where they live that they get confused when there is a real emergency. Explain the difference plainly.

7. Choose a meeting point before you need one

This works particularly well with older children. When you arrive somewhere busy, say: if we get separated and the phones are not working, we meet here.

Pick the exact spot, and pick somewhere staffed if you can. Not near the entrance. Here.

8. Take a photo before a very crowded outing

Not for Instagram. For you.

Before a festival, a theme park or a large event, take a quick photo of her. It gives you a current picture of what she is wearing, her hair, her shoes, the coat or bag she has with her.

If the worst happens and somebody asks what your child is wearing, you are not relying on a panicking brain to remember whether it was the blue top or the green one this morning.

The iMumZone five minute family safety drill

Do this every so often. Not every day, or they will start avoiding you. Ask her these five questions and you will know immediately what she has and what still needs work.

Your family plan

Fill this in once, then stick it inside a kitchen cupboard door. Take a photo of it on your phone as well, so you have it when you are out.

One thing for you as well

Before you take children somewhere very busy, decide quickly what happens if somebody is separated. With older children, agree the meeting point out loud. With younger ones, keep reinforcing staying close.

And if your child does go missing, get help fast. Tell staff or security where you are, give them a recent photo and description, and contact the police when it is appropriate. In the UK there is no requirement to wait 24 hours before reporting someone missing.

Please do not frighten her while you teach her

The goal is not a four year old walking into every shopping centre thinking today might be the day she loses her mother.

She does not have to learn it all today

Start with one thing. If your little one only knows her full name and your full name, start there. Then add the phone number. Then where you live. Then what to do.

The aim is not a child who could pass a family information exam. The aim is a child who, if she is frightened and cannot find you, has something useful in her head and a next step she has already practised, instead of standing there with no idea at all.

Tonight, ask her what she would do if she got lost. Let her answer before you teach her anything. You may be surprised by what she says.

Save this for later

Come back every few months and run the five minute drill again. What she needs to know changes as she grows.

And send it to another mum. This is one of those things we hope our children never have to use, and will be very glad we taught them if they ever do.