An Ohio mom found her lost toddler in public without having to yell her kid's name. How did she do it? She sends thanks to a parenting tip she found in TikTok.
Mother and wedding photographer at Rushville Krista Piper posted a video in her TikTok account last March 24 recalling their family's visit to this "giant science museum," the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, and narrated how she lost one of her two kids while they were at the museum play area.
Her three-year-old daughter, Lily, was going to and fro between the various exhibits in the play area when she suddenly lost track of her after talking to another mommy in the area whose little boy was playing with her son.
At first, she tried looking for her daughter but to no avail. Worry started creeping in as it was the first time she lost one of her kids in her seven years of parenting. She started to call out her name but stopped when she remembered a parenting tip she got from a Tiktok video a year ago.
"Right after I started calling her name, a little light bulb went off in my head that I remembered a TikTok that I had seen probably over a year ago. It was of a mom who had lost her kid in, I believe, a grocery store, and instead of yelling out the kid's name, she yelled out the description of what her child was wearing, and she was able to find her kid way faster," Piper explained.
Yell What the Kids Are Wearing Instead of Their Name
And that was exactly what the mother of two did, she immediately switched from calling out Lily's name and started yelling what her daughter was wearing at that time - a pink Minnie Mouse shirt.
Piper knew that people around her thought she was "a little crazy," but she did not budge and went on until she heard other moms in the museum play place repeating the description she was yelling.
Eventually, someone spotted Lily. Another mother shouted back, "Little girl. Pink shirt. Minnie Mouse," and that caught Piper's attention. She then saw her little missing girl and confirmed that the girl was her daughter, Fox News reported.
Piper then realized that Lily went missing for only a minute and a half, yet it was like the longest time of her life.
Piper was just really grateful that she found that parenting tip on TikTok and knew what she needed to do when the incident transpired. She then encouraged other parents in her video to "raise your voice" and yell out descriptions if they lost their kids or pets, assuring them that they'll find them faster.
"I probably looked like a crazy person, but it got the job done. I found my kid really fast versus me just looking by myself or just coming up to groups of parents and [being] like, 'Hey, have you seen a girl with a pink shirt? You know, three years old,' because that's probably what I normally would have done," the mother expressed.
Read More: Lose a Child in Public? Mom Shares Helpful Tips on What Parents Need to Do
Parenting Tip To Find Lost Child
Piper told the news outlet that she immediately created her almost four-minute TikTok video , which has since gone viral for being viewed more than 598,000 times, to keep parents informed, knowing how she greatly benefitted from the TikTok video she saw a year ago. It was her way of paying it forward.
Fellow moms and her followers on TikTok were "largely impressed" with Piper's video and expressed their gratitude for sharing the tip.
"To be honest, if I hear someone calling a kid's name I don't really think they are 'lost.' Yet someone who starts call[ing] descriptions, I [100%] would look," one commenter declared.
In 2021 and 2022, another TikTok user, Jessica Lyn Martin (@jesmartini) made international headlines for sharing the same parenting public service announcement. Her videos garnered millions of views.
Recently, Martini took to Instagram and uploaded the video of Piper side by side with a new video of hers simply instructing her followers to listen to what her co-mom is saying.
"This is a video that every parent, guardian, caregiver, anyone who is regularly responsible for children should see...because I have made this version of a video several times and each time it has made international news for saving children's lives," she captioned her post.
Related article: 5 Genius TikTok Mom Hacks You Should Know About
