Ohio Mom Says TikTok Parenting Tip Helped Her Find Lost 3-Year-Old Daughter in Museum Play Area
Krista Piper remembered a suggestion for finding a missing child in a crowd that she'd seen a year prior
An Ohio mom is sharing a TikTok tip she remembered during a mom panic that could be helpful for many other parents.
Wedding photographer and mom Krista Piper explained that while at a children's museum with her daughter, she lost sight of the toddler in a crowd of kids.
"I lost my 3-year-old today in a kids' play place and thank God for TikTok," she began. "Another mom actually found her for me, and found her way faster than if I had done what I normally would have done."
Noting the play place "runs the entire length of this giant science museum" and has a "lot of little nooks and crannies," the mom recalled, "she was going back and forth between the barn and the little farm stalls back and forth" as she talked to a mom friend who joined them with her own kids.
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"All of the sudden, I don't know where my 3-year-old is. I ended up going in the opposite direction of where she actually ended up because I thought, 'I didn't see her go past me.'"
She checked by her daughter's favorite water tables and she wasn't there. "At that point, I started to panic. I came back, I grabbed her brother, and I said, 'I don't know where Lily is. We need to find her. Come help me.'"
Piper started calling her name when a "little light bulb went off in my head, that I remembered a TikTok I had seen probably over a year ago."
"Instead of yelling out the kid's name, she yelled at the description of what her child was wearing, and she was able to find her kid way faster."
Piper then "stopped calling out her name and yelled, 'Little girl, pink shirt, pink Minnie Mouse shirt.'"
Though she believed "people thought I was a little crazy," she kept the tactic going for less than two minutes, which "felt like an eternity" to the worried mom.
"And I heard behind me as I walked past, other moms repeating that. I thanked God and I kept going," she continued. Luckily, a mom said, 'Little girl, pink shirt, Minnie Mouse,' and I said yes."
Piper was then reunited with her daughter and felt compelled to share the story to help other parents who might one day find themselves in the same situation.
"I probably looked like a crazy person but it got the job done," she said. "I found my kid really fast, versus me looking by myself or going up to other groups of parents."
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