When a parent needs to begin a missing child report, it is a real nightmare. The worst fear for a parent is the realization that their youngster is among the missing, the most important thing a parent can do is stay calm.
Staying calm is very difficult at best, but it is very important to resolving the crisis quickly and successfully in the case of a missing child. You also need to begin the process of reporting a missing child as soon as you can.
When your youngster does not return home on time and is missing for a two hours it is time to begin the process of reporting a missing child. First check with friends and the locations where that youngster is known to be at times then call the police.
Unlike a missing person’s report, a missing child report can began within an hour. The quicker the police are looking for your youngster the better.
When reporting a missing child becomes necessary, the parent needs to remember what the youngster was wearing. If your youngster wears primarily one color, it is far easier to remember that color then it is to guess. If that youngster usually wears a baseball, hat or bandanas share that information with the police report.
You will need a complete description to give to police officer making the report when reporting a missing child. If that child has long blond hair do not say it is long, instead tell the officer that it is shoulder length hair, or waist length hair. Mention scars, tattoos, or birthmarks but do not forget limping and any physical defects. My one son limps quite noticeably so I told officers that as well.
When reporting a missing child becomes necessary, make sure you know that child’s friends names and addresses. This way the officers can check there but you should have looked there before you call them.
When reporting a missing child you need to know their social security number, along with their birth date. Keeping minor social security cards in a wallet makes looking for these items in am emergency far easier.
Above all when reporting a missing child becomes necessary, a parent must not panic because that will only serve to slow down everything.
When reporting a missing child becomes necessary, is something I never thought I would have to deal with when it came to my third child. Yet it certainly did happen on the early morning hours of March 30, 2008 here in my small town of Athens Pennsylvania. I had to begin making a missing child report at 12:00 when my sixteen-year-old son failed to return home.
The officer asked when he was last seen, and my daughter told me it was about 8.00 and my son said he would be back at 11 pm on March 29, and when he did not return, she called me after giving him the benefit of doubt. I immediately called the police to begin the missing child report and then told Ray what had happened and we returned to my house. Officer Heckman of the Athens Borough Police department let the Officers Conduit and Dekarr on patrol know the description of my son as I told him.
As I arrived home, the officers on patrol were checking my street, spotlighting all areas, looking for my missing child, which could be seen from their patrol car. They stopped and talked with me and asked if I had found my son yet, to which I replied no, and they continued looking. My older son and his friend went on foot to look for my younger son, while I remained home with my daughter and Ray. Ray and Amber were very supportive while i cried and worried, I am grateful they were there for me, and for Alex and Cody who went searching.
All sorts of bad things were running through my mind such as the fifteen-year-old boy they found dead in a creek bed a few months ago, to my son falling in the dark and not being able to get home. My son walks with a very pronounced limp, so he being out after dark alone was very troubling to me. I paced, I cried, and worried where my youngest child was for hours.
Officer Heckman called me back and told me that he had put out an alert for my son in all the towns close to us, which are back to back in a five miles radius. That is when the tears really began to fall, as I remembered six years ago when there was a country alert for my daughter when she had run away. This time the missing child was my son, who has very few friends because of his disabilities he tends only stick close to home or with two boys who live just a few houses a way.
This is a child who is usually with those two friends or home, very seldom does he even go with his father who no longer lives with us. He is a quiet boy, very respectable, and spends a lot of time with me on errands willingly, so much, so people joke that he is my shadow. Therefore, when he was nowhere to be found it caused a panic within me that I had to begin the process of reporting a missing child.
At almost 2 am, he did not hide quickly enough and he was spotted by the officers who then alerted officer Heckman who called me. I went outside my house as the two police officers pulled up out front. The police told me they had found my son, and he was following them. I thanked the officers and began walking in the direction they had come, to meet my son. My son was not in trouble with the police for breaking curfew but he knew he was in trouble with me, and I was gentle with him at first. Carefully explaining to him why I had made the missing child report in the first place, and went from there.
My son who is an x-box addict was at another child’s home playing games and lost track of time. He told me he began walking home after 1 am and since he knew, he would be in trouble with the police for breaking curfew so when he saw them spotlighting he ducked behind a house. He had no clue that at this point the police were looking for him or that I had reported a missing child.
I am much relieved that he did not become yet another statistic. NEVER be hesitant to call the police and begin the report of a missing child if your youngster is missing and it is not normal for that child. I am very thankful that Officers Heckman, Conduit, and Dekarr were there for our family and resolved this missing child case successfully and quickly
I would also like to thank Art, from Valley Taxi who rushed to my side when he got the frantic call to pick me up and bring me home. He offered to go looking for my missing child, as he knows us well and he was concerned. That is one of aspect of living in a small town, everyone helps search for a missing child.
