Clothes May Help Find Wandering Children

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- When you're out doing that holiday shopping, there might be times when you'll have the kids with you at crowded stores. It can be a struggle to make sure they don't wander off, Boston television station WCVB reported.

One mom is on a mission to help keep children safe.

For little ones, the mall can look like a maze -- clothing racks and dressing rooms can be as appealing as a playground.

"It could be three seconds and you turn around and your heart starts palpitating. You think someone has taken the child. More than likely, they are under a rack hiding, or they went off to see something fun," Wander Wear CEO Alyssa Dver said.

Wander-Wear.com features identification tags that children wear. The tags have a place on which parents can write cell phone numbers. The company uses a purple monster character in a new safety book it also sells.

"We were trying to come up with a name that not only would a child find entertaining, but kind of represented a devilish-toddler type. The idea of a whizzing-around monster stuck with a lot of people," Dver said.

There are some steps parents can take to increase safety:

Carry a recent photo of the child

Teach children to ask another mother for help if they become separated, because it can be hard for kids to find security guards

If a child is lost and then found, don't yell when he or she returns.