Stop Thinking that you Would Never Forget your Child in your Car

This is an odd topic for this blog because I always post about healthcare and pharma marketing, trying to inspire creativity and innovation from other marketers.

Today I am making an exception, just this once.  As a mother of four young children, I feel compelled to write about this on my blog.

Last week, a 3-year old was found in a hot vehicle in Hamilton, Ontario.  He died of what appears to be signs related to being left in a hot vehicle.  This week, a 6-year old boy was found dripping in sweat in a hot car after a friend of the parent left the child to go shopping for a bit.  Apparently the child did not want to go shopping so he was left in the car with the doors locked and the windows closed tight.  Luckily, that child was found and saved by a couple walking by. We hear way too many cases like this. It is devastating.

As mentioned, I have four kids. The age span between the youngest and the oldest is 6 years, none of them are twins, so they were all born very close in age.  Just imagine, I was basically dealing with 2 or 3 babies at a time for a while.  It was chaos.  I was forgetting a lot of things, things that I would never forget normally.  I feared that one day, I would end up forgetting my keys in the ignition, lock the door and shut it before taking my kids out of their seats.  This was so worrisome to me that I started wearing my spare car key around my neck every day. I never needed to use it, but it helped keep me on my toes.  My 3 older kids are able to unbuckle themselves and get out of the car on their own now, but I still wear that key around my neck every day I bring them somewhere with me.  I was NOT being paranoid.  I was admitting to myself that I was capable of making errors, and I was preparing myself in case a bad scenario came up.

My point in telling you this story is that as parents and caregivers, we have to stop saying to ourselves that something bad, like forgetting our child in a hot car, will never happen to us.  It can and unfortunately does happen to some.  You are better off to take extra precautions and protect those wee ones.

We live in the era of technology! Take the time to use the technology that is on your smartphone to help protect your child.  You might feel like it’s silly and useless, and it might never be an issue for you, but why not take the extra precaution.  The effort to set this up is next to nothing and the peace of mind that will come with it will be enormous.

Here are some high-tech and also plain and simple ideas for you or anybody else that drives your children around, especially if it is out of the adult’s routine;

Thinking that an idea is a good is not the same as actually implementing it!  Take action now. Set something up that works for you right or anybody else that drives your children around.

If you know of a healthcare or pharmaceutical company that implements a campaign to help remind parents to take their child out of the car, let me know as it might be worth featuring on my blog.  Thank you in advance!