Okay, you know I’m not advocating that other kids follow in this tyke’s bike-steps, but how cool that a 2-year-old in German managed to zoom three miles to visit his ailing grandma! In stocking feet! Because he was worried!
Moral? Never underestimate the power of a toddler. (Or love!) – L
40 Comments
That is awesome. I never did nothing quite like that. I did run away from school in the first grade one time and walked about 1.5 miles to my grandmothers house. That is amazing. Thank you for sharing that.
those crazy Germans 😉 (I say this as someone who is proud of my german heritage.)
Hopefully he didn’t have a conversation with an older man in a sandwich shop on the way.
The lesson? Children are much more than tiny passive lambs just ripe for being picked off by ubiquitous predators. So direct that energy. Hopefully this mom has planned a hospital visit or a phone call for her determined little boy, so that he can have something to look forward to. Also this is totally not her fault because with toddlers it’s baby, baby, baby, and then suddenly ZOOOOOM TINY SELF-PROPELLED PERSON WHO TALKS, CLIMBS, AND MAKES NEFARIOUS PLANS WITHOUT ASKING MOMMY FIRST.
The big difference with our culture is that here the mother would be charged with child endangerment whereas there the police almost praise the child’s empathy and competence.
Bit of irony… that town is the source of the Pied Piper legend – the original child predator!
Just cute! And those balance bikes are awesome!
Yep, it honestly does not surprise me. It would totally freak me out if it were my kid, though. My grandma said she used to wake in the morning to my dad (age 2) frying eggs for breakfast. Argh! I was somewhat relieved to find that my own kids were born with a little less adventure in their blood.
It is a pretty big deal that a 2-year-old managed to zoom three miles to visit his grandmother, but to do it all in German is pretty amazing. My comment may not be germane to the conversation, but at least it isn’t German!
Balance bikes are awesome!
My brother was less than 5 when he decided that he didn’t want to wait for mom and I to finish changing at the pool. He got his trike unlocked and headed home. Mom freaked out a bit, but then figured out where he was headed, and with our bigger bikes we caught up and finished the journey together.
(Notice the fact that he was, at less than 5, NOT in the women’s change room with us!)
I like that he blamed his getting lost on the fact that his bike didn’t have satellite navigation!
I’d definitely freak out if my youngest did something like that, but at least it all turned out well. She is the sort to try to take off on her own.
Still, what a sweet kid. He really meant well.
I love that he blamed his bike for not having navigation! 🙂
Slacker. He didn’t even make it to the hospital.
Lucky thing the police got there first. Just imagine if the kid managed to get to his granny’s sick bed, only to find her subtly transformed… with really big eyes… and ears… and nose… and mouth!
Wow… Okay, your really stretching the limits here. A two year okd did this ? And you believe it ? Come on. Two year old minds do not have the compacity comprehend the idea of a sickness being an ailment to the body, that, if not treated properly, could lead to the ailment getting worse.
Shawn, are you suggesting the newspaper this was published in just made this up? And what does it matter what a two-year-old’s mind can comprehend about the future or the nature of illness? He knew his grandma was sick because he was told, and he knew that when people are sick, you take care of them. Two-year-olds can comprehend that much. It’s not that different from my friend’s daughter who tried to powder and baby-wipe her teddy bear the other day, just on a larger scale — and scale is the thing that toddlers *don’t* get, so it wouldn’t seem a bigger deal to try to go to the hospital, than to go hold her hand or try to give her a drink if she was in the room.
Okay, I take it back — it appears to be a spoof site, a sort of English-language German version of The Onion. But I stand by what I said about judging this by what two-year-olds are “capable” of. They’re certainly capable of “someone’s sick, need to help them because that’s what Mommy does” and then acting all out of proportion with their abilities because they don’t *get* the idea of proportion or limits on their abilities.
What a brilliant, intrepid, and compassionate child. His parents must be very proud.
Pentamom, this is a funny news site, but not a spoof site. They didn’t just find a picture and make up a story around it. Here’s the police press release:
http://www.presseportal.de/polizeipresse/pm/57895/2238969/pol-hol-sonntagmorgen-aufregung-auf-dem-forster-weg-in-holzminden-wenn-noah-joel-zur-oma-will
First off, you should know that news papers do get things wrong. To think that because a news sure said it then out must be so well obviously you have not heard the one about, George and the weapons of mass distruction.
Second, being in a family of three psychologist and two nurses… Hmmm.
Shawn, repeating something a politician said that turns out not to be true is not quite on the same level as reporting something that could easily be verified, but never happened at all. There’s the media falling for something it’s handed, but then there’s the claim that stories appear in the newspaper about verifiable things that never happened at all. The two aren’t quite the same.
And I’ll stack my experience raising five kids against the education of people you are related to, on a matter than has a lot more to do with what you observe kids to be capable of, than what someone might learn in school. My brother’s an ER doctor, but I don’t claim to be able to do surgical stitches.
Thanks for the correction, Neighbor. The tone is so tongue in cheek I thought it had to be spoof, but I can see where it could be real stuff played up for laughs. I can read enough German to see that the press release appears legit; when I was in college, I could have understood all of it. That was a long time ago, though.
His bike didn’t have navigation! I love this little boy.
This is a cute story about a sweet boy who who got loose and tried to help his grandmother. Not child endangerment. Bravo for the community for getting it right with it’s response and reporting to us so we can all have a smile.
My friends’ children ran off with their backpacks on foot about a year ago. They were 6 and 7. They left their little 3 yr old sister at home, feeling she was too young to go along. They also made it a couple of miles before somebody called the cops to report seeing them. It turned out they had been inspired by a video about Johnny Appleseed and had gone to roam the world. Found the news report http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/relationships-and-special-occasions/parenting/parents-grateful-that-kids-adventure-ends-safely/article_22d3f641-c909-54fc-b9b2-c6e7719fefc6.html
And it happened in Hameln, of all places! Best known for… the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
Is it just me, or does he look really big for a two year old?
I was thinking the same thing. I’ll bet he’s closer to three. (Although he looks the size of my 4 year old.)
He looks like my son did at that age. He was the size of baby Huey and always on the move. He just finally came back on the growth charts during his 10yo checkup; He’s 5’4 now!
He may technically be two, but he looks to be close to three. Huge developmental milestone are reached between those two ages. I look at my just-turned-2 daughter and there is no way she would consider doing this.
But, yes, I agree, kids can do many things we don’t think they can.
I can verify that the story exists on reliable German news pages too, so there has to be some truth in in. As for his age and bike, my son just turned 3 and has the same bike, so I would estimate he is 2 getting close to 3.
I can also imagine my son doing something like that
Well, that’s just it. Thirty-five and a half months is just as much “two” as twenty-four and no months. And the difference between a barely-not-one-anymore year old and a not-quite-three year old is almost as big as the difference between an 11.9 month old and a 24.0 month old
In the police report is no information about how many miles/kilometers he drove. It’s only mentioned that he kept driving a certain road up and down – and that’s what drew the attention of some people who called the police. I’m glad that nothing happened and I’m sure from now on his mom will lock the doors. (That’s what we have to do, too, my two year old knows how to open the door, and once she went outside. At least she wore shoes – and her pyjama. I’m glad there is no traffic next to our house.)
It says a lot about the different cultures that in Germany this incident was hammed up a little to be funny. In the US, this incident would have been dramaed up to be a tragedy.
And, yes, Shawn a 2-3 year old could certainly understand the concept of grandma is sick so I need to go see Grandma. He wouldn’t understand the difference between the common cold and near-death illness, but grandma is sick, mommy does X for me when I’m sick so I’ll go do X for grandma is not beyond a toddler/preschooler.
@Donna: Yes! I can easily imagine my two-year-old motoring down the road with his lion backpack on with a couple of melting fruit pops dripping out of the back, because Mommy always gives him fruit pops when he’s poorly. And of course he would turn around at the big loud intersection because, hey, big and loud, but as soon as he noticed that he was getting close to home he would head back the other way until he saw the intersection again, and back and forth . . .
Does anyone remember the story of the little girl in a US city – I think she was about 4 – who saved her dad by trotting down to the fire station for help? And the general reaction was “how terrible, she went down the street alone! Anyone could have kidnapped and hurt her! Shame on that dad for getting sick, it’s all his fault she was almost abducted, raped, and killed!”
The original german police article mentions that he wanted to visit his grandmother not far from the hospital (nothing about sick grandma) and the lack of navigation system is just a sentence added by the author of the article and not a quote from the child.
If the kid goes regularly to his grandma for daycare it is absolutely possible that he decided to take off on his own. Drivers in Germany are used to see lots of kids on their bikes and balance bikes.
For those of you considering a balance bike for their kids, beware that kids are very fast on these bikes and don’t always have the braking skills to go with it. Run mommy run!
sk1, I remember that story. Somehow it was decided that the father was irresponsible for getting catastrophically ill when alone with his daughter and not having a contingency plan for it. I guess we all need Med-Alerts now?
Just a little funny here. Today my kids were at the park and it was kinda chilly. I wore a jacket, but they opted to leave theirs in the car. After a while as my 5yo was tying her shoe, I asked, “are you sure you aren’t cold?” Her answer: “what, do you think I’m a wuss?” LOL. I ain’t raisin’ no wusses.