History Main / MissingChild

* ''Literature/GiveYourselvesGoosebumps'': The second book focuses on the main character's younger brother Denny going missing due to stepping into a time machine.

* One of the interactive ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'' books focuses on the main character's younger brother Denny going missing due to stepping into a time machine.

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* In ''WebOriginal/TheCrawlspace'', Teenagers [[spoiler:Alisha, Lindsay and Stephanie]] vanish without a trace whilst on the foreign exchange trip, never to be seen again. The narrator counts herself lucky she got out of there sharpish, or she would've vanished along with them.

* ''Literature/AcidRow'' Early on, a ten-year-old girl named Amy Biddulph goes missing. Rumours that the paedophile on Acid Row has taken Amy is one of the things that incites a riot. Part of the plot revolves around the search for Amy. [[spoiler:It's eventually revealed she willingly took off with her mother's ex-boyfriend, due to feeling he was the only person who treated her kindly and gave her attention (her mother is preoccupied with keeping a roof over their heads and oblivious to Amy being relentlessly bullied by her stepsiblings, while her father just uses her to get back at her mother for leaving him). She's returned to her mother unharmed, though she still has other issues that need addressing]].

* The plot of ''Literature/PieceOfMyHeart'' revolves around the ''[[Literature/{{Under Suspicion|Series}}'' team trying to find Johnny Buckley, the seven-year-old nephew-to-be of producer Laurie Moran, after he is kidnapped.

* In ''Literature/JohnsLily'', three-year-old Lily Maxwell disappears from a park near her wealthy father's house when the nursemaid turns her back on her for a minute. The police fail to find any leads, and Colonel Maxwell spends four years thinking his daughter is dead. Unbeknownst to him, Lily was abducted by two criminals who planned to return her for the reward money. But when they left her by the side of a country road so they could go get drunk, she was found by John Randal, who took her to his home in Markwood to raise her. John experiences this trope three years later when the kidnappers recognise six-year-old Lily and her [[OrphansPlotTrinket locket]] at Carsham Fair and abduct her again, but the next day they make the same mistake of leaving her alone so they can get drunk, and the Blands find her and take her back to Markwood. Finally, when Lily is seven, Colonel Maxwell happens to be traveling through Markwood when he recognises Lily outside a church. When he sees her locket, her identity is confirmed.

* Tragically TruthInTelevision, although in many First World countries at the least, the risk has historically been quite overstated. TheEighties saw a particularly dramatic rise of missing child reports, along with subsequent panic and [[TooSmartForStrangers emphasis on "stranger danger"]], but much of this has been criticized in hindsight as not only did it foster [[ParanoiaFuel a pretty intense and distrustful mindset within children]], [[MediaScaremongering many widespread statthanistics of "800,000 children a year go missing in America"]] tend to be based on missing child ''reports'' rather than actual cases that were investigated, which likely included those by paranoid parents wondering why their child didn't return home on time filed before they showed up unharmed sometime later, inflating the numbers. Studies have also proven that a vast majority of "missing children" tend to be either [[TheRunaway runaways]] (usually motivated by a conscious reason for why they're fleeing their home) or in fact abducted by close family members (usually disaffected divorced parents), [[WorryingForTheWrongReason with more sensationalized reasons like nonfamily abductions being exceptionally scarce]].

* In [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/37740697/chapters/94224358 It All Comes Back]], Camilo went missing shortly after his gift ceremony. He ended up in the same lab as Eleven, where he spent eight years. [[BigDamnReunion He wouldn’t end up return to the Encanto for another twenty years.]] Will’s canon disappearance also still happens.

* In [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/37740697/chapters/94224358 It All Comes Back]], Camilo went missing shortly after his gift ceremony. He ended up in the same lab as Eleven, where he spent eight years. [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BigDamnReunion He wouldn’t end up return to the Encanto for another twenty years.]] Will’s canon disappearance also still happens.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/Braceface'' episode "Twenty Four Hours" Sharon's little brother Josh runs away after feeling neglected when Sharon would rather spend time with her friends than help him with piano. They find him hiding in his snow fort.

* Tragically TruthInTelevision, although in many First World countries at the least, the risk has historically been quite overstated. TheEighties saw a particularly dramatic rise of missing child reports, along with subsequent panic and [[TooSmartForStrangers emphasis on "stranger danger"]], but much of this has been criticized in hindsight as not only did it foster [[ParanoiaFuel a pretty intense and distrustful mindset within children]], [[MediaScaremongering many widespread statistics of "800,000 children a year go missing in America"]] tend to be based on missing child ''reports'' rather than actual cases that were investigated, which likely included those by paranoid parents wondering why their child didn't return home on time filed before they showed up unharmed sometime later, inflating the numbers. Studies have also proven that a vast majority of "missing children" tend to be either [[TheRunaway runaways]] (usually motivated by a conscious reason for why they're fleeing their home) or in fact abducted by close family members (usually disaffected divorced parents), [[WorryingForTheWrongReason with more sensationalized reasons like nonfamily abductions being exceptionally scarce]].

-->--'''Claudio''', ''[[VideoGame/YIIKAPostmodernRPG YIIK: A Postmodern RPG''

-->--'''Claudio''', ''VideoGame/YIIKAPostmodernRPG''

->''"I had a kid brother, you know? He went missing in 1985. Got on his bike to go to our neighbor's, seven houses up the street, and he just vanished. Never came back. We looked for him for months. Dad never stopped... still hands our flyers at the grocery store every Sunday."''

* ''ComicBook/TheDeadBoyDetectives'' 2005 graphic novel: The girls contact the Dead Boy Detectives because their schoolmate Elizabeth has vanished and the staff is not only quiet about it, but also bear suspicious links to her. [[spoiler:She is revealed to be totally fine; she is the daughter of an unconventional reality TV family who did not share their love for the spotlight, and the staff were compensated to keep her identity secret.]]