Now doubt it was a bad scene.
However
I had a younger brother whom at around 4 years old, used to sneak out of the house in the early morning and go long distance around our neighborhood seeking new places to play (flower beds) with his bucket, toy shovel and toy cars.
Usually this was only discovered after an older brother and I finished morning paper routes, would be sitting having our breakfast and mom would come out and ask where our little brother was. Usually we assumed he was still in bed, but mom was asking because he wasn’t.
Usually a not so major search would find him at a nearby neighbors house.
One day, his absence was not noticed until after dad had left for work - usually between 7 and 8. A search on our block didn’t find him. Neither did a more extensive search with the help of neighbors.
Dad was called to come home and the police were called too. Our little brother was found.
My dad had never been more angry - the worry our brother had put mom and dad through.
But dad’s solution horrified us older kids.
He got a very long rope, tied one end around our brother’s waist and the other around a tree in the back yard. He instructed my mom and us that that was where our brother was to remain from whenever he finished his breakfast to whenever my dad got home. Mom could let him in for the bathroom and take his lunch out to the tree. My brother and I were required to check on where he was when we got up to do our routes and when we finished them. Dad didn’t answer how long this would last. His answer was “until I say different”.
The sight of my little brother tied to the tree, no matter how long the rope (about 25 feet), made some of us cry.
True story.
The parents in the story don’t sound like charming characters, and I am not making any excuses for them, but I have experienced, personally, the huge grief and concern of parents whose kid is missing only because, at a real immature age, they wandered far from home.
Our fourth child was like that. Many moments of extreme anxiety for us when she was between the ages of two and five.
We had to put eye hooks on all the exterior doors because she would get up and explore between 1 and 5am. Freezing to death in a Minnesota winter or drowning in the lake while we slept were very real possibilities for her.
She was also like a little mountain goat in a shopping cart. No buckle could contain her. I tried using a harness and leash in the grocery store but she just lay quietly on the floor. I would have had to drag her. Briefly considered it because she would have thought it a game, but knew someone would report me for abuse.
We were so relieved when she grew out of that!