When I travel with my older kids, I make sure they stick close by pretty much all the time. The only place where I am a bit lax is inside a museum or park where there is a good amount of space (but still contained) and I will still have a good idea of where they are, even if they aren’t within eyesight at all times. My older kids are very good about holding my hands when we are on the move, and I know exactly where they are 99% of the time.
Thus far we had not had any issues. But then changed when we had a mishap on the Beijing subway during our visit to the Chinese capital in November.
Almost losing my son on the Beijing subway
We had ridden the Beijing subway every single day in the city. The process was the same: buy single use tickets, enter through the gates, make our way to the platform, hop on, then hop off at our destination. It was crowded at times, and we’d had to push our way onto a couple cars, but I’d never been concerned about losing one of the kids. We were always moving as a tight group.
However, as we stepped onto the platform to make our way from Nanluoguxiang to a different hutong before heading to the Lama Temple during our final day in Beijing, everything went wrong. We arrived on the platform via the escalator to a train currently at the platform. A few people were still stepping on, so we made our way toward the waiting train. My son asked if this was our train, and I said yes.
He started moving ahead of me, and right as he crossed into the car, the doors sounded and started to close. Everything was timed perfectly…the wrong way. I was holding my daughter’s hand, and she was a pace behind. I had less than a second to react. Instead of letting go and trying to dive between the closing doors, I didn’t let go of her hand. I was stuck between kids.
My son turned around, panic on his face. He was on the inside, and we were both on the outside. The train would be departing momentarily, and he would be whisked off to the next station. I immediately started yelling at him to get off at the next stop. But through two walls of glass in a noisy station, I didn’t know if he could hear me.
My mind racing, I started thinking through what I would need to do to ensure I didn’t lose him for good. Would there be an agent close by who spoke English and could radio the train operator or someone in the next station and make sure someone found him and waited with him until we arrived on the next train? Would he know to get off at that station on his own?
About 7 full seconds passed when the doors opened and we were all reunited. Turns out someone must have been watching the whole ordeal and realized what had happened. I barely avoided losing him. But this prompted us to have a thorough discussion about navigating the subway. I came up with two common sense rules that will not dictate our subway travels:
Common sense rule #1
If you get on a train and dad doesn’t make it on, get off at the next stop and stay put until I find you. Having this in place beforehand would have given me confidence that even if we had ended up separated, I would find my son on the platform of the next station. He would almost certainly be anxious and panicked, but the odds of him getting lost or (God forbid) kidnapped would be extremely low. We would be on the next train, just minutes behind.
I drilled this first rule into their heads, our recent (almost) mishap a poignant example. But we also need a second rule along with it.
Common sense rule #2
If dad gets on the train and you don’t make it on, stay put until I come back and find you. This is simply the other side of the coin to the first situation. I typically have one hand of each child when we step on the subway, so it hadn’t even crossed my mind that this might happen. But now I knew I absolutely had to guard against this eventuality.
If I somehow got on a train without a kid, they would hopefully realize that the logical course of action is just to wait for me, knowing I would come back for them. But as logic is sometimes spotty with my kids, making sure everyone is crystal clear on this point as well was critical.
What to do if you lose your child on the subway
But what if the worst had happened and my son had been whisked away from us at high speed? I’m really not sure what I would have done. We hadn’t rehearsed these rules ahead of time, and he had not been able to hear what I was trying to tell him through the double walls of glass. My only hope would be to find someone who spoke English to be able to alert personnel at either one of the information kiosks or some other part of the subway system and let them know the exact time and direction of the train that departed with my son on board.
But hopefully with a couple common sense rules in place, you would never need to. I hope we never have to use them, but at least we are now prepared in case my kids and I do get separated on the subway. Check out some other tips for navigating the subway with kids in one of the links in this old roundup post.
Conclusion
I am taking no chances. We will review both of these rules from now on each and every time we ride the subway, no matter the city. While I’m definitely not one that sees danger lurking around every corner while traveling, I want to avoid even the remote possibility of losing them. Knowing what to do if you lose your child on the subway is critical, and it was a travel concern that hadn’t even come up on my radar until our incident. Thank goodness that things turned out the way they did!
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
good advice
I heard of a kid that misunderstood changing seats for getting off. The kid squeezed through the door and then the subway left.
The parents split up. One went several stops to the intended destination and waited. The other parent had the next station call the station where the kid was. The kid was waiting on the platform but was not spotted. The NYPD was then called. The police took the parent from the next station to the station where the kid was not spotted. Sirens were used. The police drove fast. There, the kid was spotted on the platform. Maybe the subway employee just didn’t look.
Man…that sounds awful and difficult. And without the added complication of a language barrier!
Great advice, and worth drilling into your kids. Heck, it’s probably good for adult couples to have a similar protocol agreed on.
It’s probably good to have a similar protocol for elevators. My suggestion would be: If the kid doesn’t get on the elevator with the parent, they should stay there. If the kid gets on the elevator without the parent, they should go to the ground floor (1 in the US, usually G in the UK [I think], RC or 0 in France, etc.; or the floor with a star by the button if there is one) and wait there.
I never use public transit in China, especially with kids. Taxi is supper cheap in China.
True. But 75 cents for all three of us is still cheaper. And the subway is super clean and nice. But that would certainly avoid any potential incidents like this!
Strangely, our incident in Shanghai was using taxis. We were going to Shanghai Disney (on the second day they were open). With 6 of us, we had to use two cabs. We had the people at the WA explain to the drivers where we were going and off we went. I and two of my daughters arrived at Disney about 45 minutes later (and nearly forgot our bags in the trunk) but my wife and other two daughters were nowhere to be found. We waited maybe 15 minutes, still no sign of them. Called them and they were not close to where they were supposed to be and their driver would not listen to them (and couldn’t understand them much anyway). They ended up someplace that was guarded by military personnel, their driver decided at one point to pick up another fare but my wife was clear that wasn’t happening, and the driver at one point decided to get out and relieve himself in full view of the family. Finally, since it was clear the driver had no idea where he was going, she turned on her roaming data and used “find my iPhone” to get directions to my phone and guided him turn by turn to where we were. All in, she was in the cab for more than 2 hours.
Find your wife and get busy. No time to lose.
This happened to me 30 years ago in NYC subway. As I read your posting that sense of panic returned. Like you he did get off at the next station and waited. I had mouthed and tried to hand gesture instructions. After that harrowing experience we have family rules. 1 always have hotel name and address in possession of every family member and get off at next station or if left stay in place.
Yes – this is our family rule too. I claim that Ian stole it from me 😛
Shamelessly. 🙂
I would consider adding another subway or mass transit rule that precedes the others:
We will not rush to get on a train already at the station.
Even if kids understand rules 1 and 2, you could still run into issues if the next train does not have the same first stop. Local and express trains on the same route have different stops.
Spend those extra few minutes people watching or admiring the subway art.
I hadn’t even thought of that, but it could cause terrible confusion in New York.
I’ll agree that we should have not rushed this one. Generally, we don’t. But it felt like we had just enough time and ended up exactly wrong.
I am so glad that your event turned out safely.
This is such a good thing to bring up. We don’t travel by subway at home at all, but we have a lot in Europe. I never thought of this or went over it with my 5 kids. I will be going over this with them.
When it is dh and I traveling with them he gets on first with some of the littles and I am the last one to get on. So I can see that every child has gotten on before I do. But coming up with a what if plan is a great idea.
That is a good MO. With just me and the older two, can’t have the same system. Just have to keep them close and plan for that potential separation.
Same thing happened to me in Lisbon: train on the station, moving quickly through the escalator, holding one kid while the other let go. Difference is I jumped into the doors and prevented them from closing. But after that, we established exactly the same rules and will remind them at every trip from now on.
Exact same thing happened to us in Tokyo just last month. But in our situation, my husband and my son got on, me and my daughter were left on the platform. Luckily, each kid had an adult with them. After that, we did exactly what you did and drilled into their heads those two common sense rules if they were ever left behind on their own. However, for the remainder of our vacation, we were just more careful about making sure EVERYONE can get on the train before actually getting on.