A Phone App That Helps Keep Kids Safe!
I worry about my kids constantly…but that’s a mother’s job, right? Maybe they think I’m overprotective (I know they do) but I just want to keep them safe. Is that so wrong? Last week, I dropped my 9-year-old off at one of her activities and began to pull away in the car pool lane. As I watched to make sure she went in the door to her class, I saw her turn back and go out to the playground – where no one was supervising. I drove back, parked and told her to go inside to her class and she rolled her eyes and told me she was waiting for her friend. I had no idea eye rolling started at 9…why didn’t someone warn me! I explained that it wasn’t safe for her to be on the playground alone without a parent or teacher there. I told her that it’s not that I don’t trust her – but there are a lot of bad people in this world who try to hurt or take children and she can never be alone. She really wasn’t listening…she just wanted me to go before her friends got there. Sigh. No matter how often I tell her, and we talk about it a lot, she just doesn’t seem to understand what a dangerous place this world is.
The truth is, every 40 seconds a child is reported missing. That’s more than 2,000 kids a day…frightening isn’t it? Recently, I received an email about a website that could help if the unthinkable does happen. It’s called SecuraChild.com and it combines the power of facebook, twitter, email and text in the event a child goes missing.
On this encrypted and secure website you can create a free, secure account for your child where you can put a picture and information like height, weight, hair color, eye color, other identifying information and medical conditions. If, God forbid, your child goes missing you add updated information like where the child was last seen and what he was wearing. That information is sent out in a blast to social networking sites and through text messages and email. SecuraChild, which is operated by SecuraTrac is a free service that parents can access in an emergency.
Securatrac also has an app that may be helpful when the kids get a little older. It’s called SecuraFone and it transforms a cell phone into a safety device. SecuraFone allows parents and kids to always be connected through the power of GPS technology. The app gives parents location updates and goes one step further by uploading an SOS key onto the phone.
If the child is in trouble or needs help, he simply presses an SOS button or slides a bar to send out an alert, via email or text, to all emergency contacts. I think that’s a great feature!
This next feature may be controversial with teens…but it could also save lives. The SecuraFone App has a distracted driver feature which detects the speed of a car and locks the phone to prevent texting and emailing while driving.
If parents choose they can also receive speed alerts. A message will be sent if the child is driving over a predetermined speed threshold.
Parents have access to all of the phones settings through a password protected web account. SecuraFone is available for iPhone and Android devices for $8.99/month. For more information go to the SecuraFone Website
What do you think? Would you install this on your child’s phone? How do you think he or she would feel about it?
4 Responses to “A Phone App That Helps Keep Kids Safe!”
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My children are all adults; I wish this was around when they were younger because I would most definitely have had this installed. The world is not the same as it was when I was younger. We could go out and play on the street and knew to be back when it started to get dark. There was always a parent around, looking out the window, etc. so someone pretty much always knew where we were. It is a very different world today, both parents working; more and more children are becoming latch-key kids. This sounds like a great idea to me. I have a 2 1/2 yr. old grandson and it is good to know that when he gets old enough to have a phone, the app will probably be even more effective, doing probably more things.
When my kids were growing up, there was no such thing as a cell phone. There were a few times when I might have needed to track one of them down but, for the most part, I trusted them and had confidence that they would be safe. A lot of people in the neighborhood were reachable by phone,and the kids usually stayed in the Commack/Dix Hills area. I think my kids would have been furious and mortified if I had been tracking their whereabouts. The SOS feature, on the other hand, is a fabulous idea for adults as well as kids carrying cell phones.
I’m thinking that maybe you were referring to preteens and younger kids. I guess many of them carry cell phones, nowadays. In their case a tracking device would be great.
Honestly, no matter what the kids think, it’s the parent’s duty to protect as much as we can. Can a parent be over protective? Sure, but these are YOUR children and you have to do what you think is right. When I was 11 growing up outside of NYC, I took the train by myself into NY from the suburbs, met friends from camp, went to lunch and a Broadway show. No one thought anything of it. Today? No way! Times change and unfortunately for parents, you need to use whatever means are at your disposal to keep your kids safe.