When a child is missing, hollering her name all over the house is a good place to start. It stops being useful when the pitch and fear in the holler start an adrenaline rush which damp out thought. It would have been much better for me to alert Howard that Gleek was missing so that we could start a systematic search. Fortunately he heard the pitch of fear in my calls and started to calmly look in likely places. Kiki also responded with calm thought and went to ask our backyard neighbor. This was perfect because the backyard neighbor was the one who located Gleek in another neighbor’s back yard.
Gleek was missing a total of about 15 minutes; 10 minutes before I noticed she was gone, 5 minutes of searching.
We had a family conference discussing the importance of always notifying a parent of where you are going. I have carefully tried to not take out the post adrenaline crankies on the kids. Gleek is grounded from friends tomorrow.
I just wish I’d reacted more effectively.
It is hard to be logical in situations like that. I think that is one of the reasons that I love co-parenting. When three-year old Rookie decided to walk home from a church activity at 9:30 at night, it was feral children who found him and kept him safe until my husband showed up. These boys often wander the streets on their own at night but my husband has invested his time in them so they were kind to my son.
I like that I worry about your children. I know that you care for mine. It truly takes a village to raise a child. I’m glad that I live in this village.
Yeah. Me too.
I’m glad that you live here and I’m glad that I do.
*hugs*
Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s a natural enough reaction.
You’re awfully hard on yourself sometimes, it’s natural to worry when you can’t find one of your kids.
If I may say so, I’m really impressed with Kiki reacting calmly too. She’s going to be a rock for you when she’s older. Heck, I’m sure she is now.