Taking the Wondering out of Wandering

by Alyssa Dver

You won’t read it in tonight’s newspaper or see it discussed on the evening news. Yet several thousands of children will be lost today – accidentally wandering away from their parent or caretaker.

Every parent has a story. They cite times where one of their children decided to hide in a department store, wandered off at the beach or when a child “just took off” in an instant while the parent was tending to a sibling. If you can relate to this, then you know how terrifying it can be to not know where your child is - even for one minute. The panic that you feel is indescribable. Accidental wanderings are common events but they can leave indelible memories for parents regardless of the cause or outcome.

According to an October 2002 US Department of Justice report¹, over 198,300 kids are temporarily lost for more than 1 hour from their caretakers each year (that’s 543 kids each day!). As an example, an Intimetrix² report noted that in the past 12 months, over 27% of all families that visited an amusement park lost one of their children while they were there. A Boston-area mall noted that they had 750 reports of lost children last year alone!³ However, put into perspective, a recent study by Wander Wear Inc. found that only 11% of the accidental wander incidents ever get reported at all.⁴

Clearly, children often get lost accidentally and it can happen in any crowded venue. While there aren’t too many ways to prevent accidental wandering aside from using a controversial child leash, there are ways to minimize the time and impact when a child is separated from their parent or caretaker.

There are some new products on the market that can help find lost children. There are high-tech devices such as GPS-enabled bracelets that can trace a child’s location and provide a panic button for the child to enable should they be lost or endangered. The bracelets cost several hundreds of dollars and in addition you are also required to pay a monthly service fee. The systems provide real-time monitoring similar to the way home alarm systems work. From a more permanent perspective, computer chips designed to be homing devices have been implanted successfully under the skin of pets and are now starting to be tested for use with children. These products may seem extreme to many parents and as such, are limited to those who can both afford them and have no ethical issue with them. Over time, the cost for the technology will come down, but in the meanwhile, these are not solutions for everyone.

In contrast, there are some low-tech solutions that are available today that specifically deal with accidental wandering. A new product on the market is a specially designed parent locator tag that clips on or inside the child’s clothing. By using this kind of visible but safe information, children can be quickly and easily reunited with their parents in family-friendly environments such as a malls, amusement parks, zoos, and fairs. The front of the tag indicates that the child may need assistance should they be found alone. The back of the tag allows an adult to write in one or two cell phone contact numbers. When someone finds a lost child, they can quickly call the child’s caretaker and arrange for a meeting place to reunite the family. With the pervasiveness of cell phones today, parent locator tags are a simple solution to assist in making accidental wandering a lot less stressful to both child and parent.

However, many people immediately panic at the thought of putting any information on their child. Stemming from childhood lessons of “never talk to strangers”, we have all been conditioned with this somewhat irrational paranoia. Rather than put even a cell number on their child, some people would rather trust that a lost child will be found by a proper authority. The Wander Wear survey⁴ found in fact, that 43% of parents do not prepare themselves or their children for an accidental separation when visiting a crowded venue. They trust that while visiting public places such as malls, amusement parks, or ballgames, the security department will announce that they have found a lost child over a public address system. Assuming the child’s caretaker hears the announcement and can then properly identify the lost child to the security personnel, the process can take a significant amount of time at best, causing potential harm to the child and unnecessary trauma to both parent and child. This also assumes that there is a public address system available – beaches, fairs and other outdoor venues typically do not have any such system to announce lost children.

There is another important statistic to consider: 75% of intentional abductions are done by family members who already know the child’s name.¹ With this surprising statistic, it is clear that most abductors already know a lot about the child, including their name and address. Furthermore, with or without i.d. on them, most young children will proudly tell anyone their name when requested. A lost child will most likely be panicked and visibly upset giving the most obvious signs to the outside world that they are vulnerable and lost. So whether the child bears their name visibly on their clothing or if they voluntarily tell it to someone, giving information such as a name really isn’t the problem. The problem is that we assume that everyone out there wants to kidnap children. In reality, we should prepare our children with contact information readily available. This will give them an advantage of receiving assistance with the odds at 300 to 1that most people want to help them, not hurt them.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, for example, posts a brochure on its website that discusses child safety in amusement or theme parks. In it, they suggest, “as a parent, you should make sure your children carry some form of identification and family/emergency contact information with them in case they become separated from you or need assistance.” When a child wanders off in a family friendly place it is essential that they have safe contact information on them, so someone can effectively help when they find the lost child. It is hard for even older children to remember their phone numbers (let alone a cell number) or specified meeting place when they are lost and under stress. Older children may opt to have the contact information in a pocket so they have it if needed. Younger children need to have contact information exposed so it will communicate for them.

Whether you are at a familiar local mall or on vacation somewhere foreign, every child can use some assistance in having a quick way to call their parents if need be. Don’t let old myths get in the way of allowing your child to be found and returned to you quickly and easily. Be a responsible parent by having appropriate information on your child anytime you are away from home.

Source = NISMART2: National Incident Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway and Thrownaway Children. U.S. Department of Justice. October 2002.
Source = IntiMetrix study, 2002.
Source = interview with head of security at a Boston-area mall that requested to remain anonymous; December 2002.
Source = Wander Wear Inc. parent survey, November 2003.

About the Author:

Alyssa Dver is CEO and co-founder of Wander Wear^TM Inc., (www.wander-wear.com), a parent-run company that specializes in products and services designed to help quickly and easily reunite accidentally lost children with their parents or caregivers. This is her third entrepreneurial endeavor. She is also Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of SEDONA Corporation (OTC:SDNA) where she is responsible for Business Development, Marketing, and Product Management. Prior experience includes senior management positions based in the US and in Europe at a number of technology companies. She is often hired as a marketing and product management consulting by companies in a variety of industries.

Dver is the author of the book “Software Product Management Essentials”, a hands-on guide helping small and mid-sized software companies to deliver quality products on time. She teaches this topic at business schools and professional associations. Ms. Dver also writes special sections for BusinessWeek on topics including Real Time Enterprise (RTE) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). She has been published in several journals and is often quoted in the media. She is a requested speaker at business schools, professional association functions, trade conferences and customer events.

Ms. Dver graduated from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania with a major in Marketing. She is the mother of two boys ages 6 years and 2.