• Little Regent Nursery
  • Safety

Never Forget Your Child in the Car

No parent believes it could happen to them, and that is precisely why it keeps happening. A child left in a parked car is almost never the result of carelessness. It is the result of an ordinary brain running an ordinary routine on autopilot while it is tired, distracted or running late.

In our climate the margin for error is very small. A car parked in the sun heats up far faster than most people expect, and a young child's body warms several times quicker than an adult's. Opening a window barely slows it down. Minutes matter, not hours.

Do not rely on remembering. Build habits that make forgetting physically impossible.

Put something you need in the back

Your phone, your handbag, your staff pass, your left shoe if you are feeling dramatic. The point is that you cannot walk away from the car without opening the rear door. This single habit is the most effective one on the list because it does not depend on your memory at all.

Open the back door every single time

Every trip, every time, even when your child is not with you. Make it as automatic as locking the car. A habit that only runs some of the time is not a habit; it is a hope.

Agree a rule with your partner and your nursery

Decide who is doing drop-off each morning and tell the other person if the plan changes. Most incidents follow a change to the usual routine - a different parent driving, a missed nursery day, an unexpected errand. At Little Regent we call families when a child has not arrived and we have not heard from you. Ask your nursery whether they do the same, and always let us know in advance about absences so that the call means something.

A child's bag left on the back seat as a reminder to check the car
A parent walking a child from the car to the nursery entrance

Keep the car locked when it is parked at home

Children who are old enough to wander are old enough to climb into a car to play and then find they cannot get out. Lock the doors, keep keys out of reach, and check the vehicle first if a child ever goes missing at home. Teach older children that a car is not a hiding place.

Look before you walk away

A three-second glance into the back seat before you lock up costs nothing. Say it out loud if it helps: doors, bag, back seat. Some parents keep a soft toy on the front passenger seat whenever a child is in the car and move it back when the child is out.

If you see a child alone in a parked car

Do not wait to find the driver. Try the doors, call for help immediately, and stay with the vehicle. A stranger acting quickly has ended far more of these stories well than badly.

Safety underpins everything we do at Little Regent Nursery in Al Ain, from our gated, manned playground and round-the-clock CCTV to our full-time nurse and strict authorised-collection checks. If you would like to see our safety and collection procedures for yourself, contact us to arrange a visit.