Wouldn?t it be helpful to have a set of agreed upon codes for rules your kids could follow in situations that requires extra precaution and communication?
Ever had your six-year-old run off in the department store and get lost, only to turn up in the Home Office section? What if you had an agreed upon meeting place, like the checkout counter in the front? If you taught her a code word like MAC (for Meet At Checkout), you?d could remind her whenever you took her shopping. You?d do it quickly, simply ? and minus the lectures most kids just ?tune out? anyway.
Or if your son has a tendency to run outside when it rains, you might think to remind him with the code word you?d worked out between you, something like ?turtles.? It could simply mean: Don?t forget your rain jacket and boots. But it would save you (and your child) the embarrassment of yelling, ?Michael, if I have to tell you one more time??
What ?precautionary codes? do you use at home? What do you do in these and similar situations? In the comment field below, share your story about a situation that would have benefited from a family code and how you?ll handle it differently the next time andwe?ll randomly select 50 responders to receive a Code Orange mouse pad.
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Starts 12:00 a.m. ET on November 12, 2007 and ends at 11:59 p.m. ET on November 18, 2007
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Comments: 12
I can say it now, because she's an adult and grown and away from home, but when my daughter was little [her name is Anita ] her brother couldn't say Anita, so he said Needles.
And so I told her that would be our "code word" Needles.
Something not even remotely close to anything around her, about her, or even with her, so no one could mimic or copy the code, or accidently on purpose figure it out.
It worked perfectly.
Especially the time we went to visit out of state family and we had all gone to their local mall, and my daughter ran ahead three stores to the Disney store and stood outside it, yelling at us to "hurry up" so she could go in.
Well apparently we weren't fast enough for her or so we thought, and when we got up to the Disney store she was no where to be seen so we entered and I assumed she had already given up waiting and was already in there too....she wasn't.
We searched everywhere, and my husband said, " Do you think she lost sight of us and got scared and went out to the car?" I said "NO, she would never do that, that's only for when we're at home and she knows the parking lot, this is a strange place, a bigger mall parking lot and she doesn't know where our car is parked, so she would simply get lost if she left the building.
He decided to go check anyway, and found our car empty...so he hurried back inside and when I saw him empty-handed and shaking his head "no", I immediately screamed and started crying outloud and a passing policeman asked me what was wrong, I told him my daughter was missing, so he quickly announced over the speaker system, a "Code Adam", and told everyone to be on the lookout for a little girl about 5 with long dark hair and a pink Cinderella t-shirt and white shorts, if seen, to approach her and keep her within eye view but not to touch her and to immmediately call the police station in the mall's center.
Then he started asking me questions, when was the last time I physically saw her, what was she doing, wearing, etc...while I answered his questions I scanned the crowd and I noticed that all store personel......
[as instructed beforehand-which I did not know was that every employee of the mall was to instantly stopped everything and checked their store for the child and then stand at the entrance of their store to show security that they had checked and the child was not in their store/area]
.......I saw clerks standing in their doors for literally a block down the mall, and I just stood outside the Disney store crying and sobbing, the policeman called in backups to check all exits and then he asked if we had checked our car and I explained that my husband had and he then asked if we had a "code" word and I told him "Needles" and he quickly radioed that to the other security officers, telling them that she would not speak to them without the code word.
He then left to check security cameras......it seemed like for-EVER, but really was only about 10 minutes....still, ten minutes too long.
I thought anything can happen in one minute and she's been gone ten now...and I cried harder.......when suddenly I heard "MOM!" and I looked up and here came my daughter running with a policeman at her heels.
Apparently the policeman had decided to recheck the parking lot where our car was parked via security cameras and saw something pink laying by the car so he sent someone out to check and he watched as the "pink" stood up and my daughter appeared on the screen and also the security guard, then he watched as she ran from him around the car, screaming and so he than quickly told the outside guard to call her NEEDLES.
And he watched as she stopped and gave the guard her hand and allowed herself to be lead into the store to us.
Had he not called her NEEDLES she would have kept running and maybe been hit by a car or grabbed by someone else........later she explained that she lost sight of us and thought we had passed the Disney storeand so she ran ahead to look for us [while we were in the actual Disney store] then she got scared and decided to go out to the car and see if we had left without her
[how she found our car I will never know, it was a huge mall with several huge parking lots and many, many cars, at least 1,000 per lot, so when I asked her HOW she found the car..... she simply shrugged her shoulders and smiled and said she knew right where to go, and found it easily]
And she said she had also remembered I had always said [she didn't know I meant AT home not away but I'm glad just the same] at home,that if they got lost to go and stand by our car and grab the handle for dear life and not let anyone take them from the car and to not speak, not nod their head, not respond in any way UNLESS they said NEEDLES-the code word. Becuase as soon as I noticed they were missing I would head striaght for the car, so to always go to the car and wait.
Suffice to say all ended well, and it was a lesson well learned by all of us-especially ME. Had it not been for the code word, and her remembering to stay with the car.....the story may not have turned out as well as it did. Talk about scared but proud of her for remembering what we taught her, because it literally saved her life.
I later changed the "to the car part" and made it "to a policeman or security guard and have them page us." Realizing how dangerious going outside to the car could be........Now even security can't be safe-proof 100% so I'm just glad that they're all grown up and safe and sound adults.
We did discuss, "the rules" before we left the car when we traveled places. It was always easier to let them know ahead of time our expectations. Once when a bunch of us were traveling together my sister-in-law turned around and asked, "Aunt Trish, what are the rules?"
I proceeded to give the rules. We all travel two by two, each person got a certain amount of money to spend, etc.
It was an enjoyable afternoon.
We also use STOP which means just that. If someone is doing or saying something wrong we use this word to picture a stop sign- gives us time to think about our actions.
I'm not sure how it even started but I konw I started doing it when my oldest son was just a baby. It was just the two of us for two years so I started doing it and it worked great. Now with my other two, I do it with them as well.
Before we go anywhere, especially a place with a lot of people, I tell them what to do if we got seperated. At very large events, like the fair, I have all of us wear the same color shirt so we can find each other better in case something happens. Nothing has happened yet but I like to be prepared for those what ifs!
I have never been one to trust anyone when it comes to my kids. I am very strict when it comes to safety and protecting my kids.