It’s every parent’s worst nightmare. You’re in a store with your child, when suddenly, you lose sight of your kid. Immediately, you begin to panic and frantically start searching the aisles for your child. But chances are, you might not know how to look for your kiddo, and that’s where this viral parenting hack can help you in case your child gets lost.
It’s happened to the best of us. You think that you have a firm grip on your child, but all it takes is to become slightly distracted, and then your child is gone. Thing is, would you know how to find your kid is they go missing in public? A TikTok hack from mom of three Jess Martini has gone viral for the simple reason that it can help you rethink how to locate your little one.
“If your child ever goes missing God forbid in a public place—because, remember, these things happen to even the best parents—if you’re at an amusement park, zoo, mall, whatever it is, and you look around and your child is no longer with you, what you want to do is you want to start loudly looking for them,” says Martini in the TikTok PSA. “Do not start silently looking for them—you want to look loudly—and what I mean by that is you start shouting their description while you look … And you’re going to keep repeating yourself while you look over and over again.”
@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
Martini explains that this technique works because “Now you’ve got every single person who is around you looking for your child instead of just you and, best case scenario, somebody finds your child and they return them to you,” she continues. “Worst case scenario is somebody was walking away with your child. They’re more likely to let them go because they don’t want that sort of commotion.”
Of course, you might feel funny shouting out your child’s description to strangers, and that’s understandable. As Martini posted in her TikTok, “Blew my mind when I first learned it and would not have been an instinct had I not been told.” This might be because, as parents, we think that we’re supposed to have our kids under control at all times, especially in public places. To have your child wander off might make you feel like you weren’t paying attention or cause embarrassment, but having a large search group of emotionally-invested strangers helping you can greatly increase your chances of locating your kiddo.
The TikTok, which was posted in late 2020, has garnered over 3.5 million likes and has been shared 731.2K times. Hopefully it’s something you never have to use, but it can become another tool in your parenting arsenal to keep your child safe.