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Kid Care ID Program
A missing child is a parent’s worst nightmare,
especially considering that cases of abducted and runaway children occur at an
alarming rate every year. Each year, approximately:
- 450,000 Children Run Away
- 350,000 Children Are Abducted By A Family Member
- 4,600 Children Are Abducted By Strangers
That’s more than 800,000 children missing each year –
one child every 40 seconds. Yet, when the National Child Identification Program
began, less than two percent of parents had a copy of their child’s
fingerprints at home in case of an emergency.
More than 13 million I.D. Kits have been distributed.
This growing figure makes the National Child Identification Program the largest
child identification effort ever conducted, with a goal of fingerprinting all
60 million children in the United States.
What Can I Do To Keep My Child Safe?
- Never leave a child unattended or alone in the car.
-
Keep a complete description of your child, including hair and eye color, height, weight, date
of birth, and other identifying characteristics (such as glasses, braces, pierced ears, birth marks).
-
Take a photograph of your child every six months (four times a year for children under age two).
Head-and-shoulder portraits taken from different angles (like school pictures) are preferable.
-
Listen when your child tells you he or she does not want to be with someone; there may be a
reason you should know about.
-
Know your child's friends and their parents. Be involved in your child's activities.
Top Ten Rules For Protecting Kids
- Teach kids to pay attention to posture, gesture, different ways people look so that they can learn to be alerted to clues when something is wrong.
- Teach kids to yell, "This is not my parent!" if someone tries to take them away.
- Create a password between you and your child. It is common for strangers to claim that the child's parent asked that they pick up the child. If a child knows to ask for the password, and the stranger does not know it, the child will know not to trust the person.
- Teach your children that if a stranger tries to take them away, they should scratch, scream and try to get away.
- Never let your children walk home alone. Organize adult-supervised walking-home groups.
- Make sure your child knows his full name, address, and phone number, as well as those of his parents.
- Teach your child how to make an emergency phone call.
- Make sure the child never tells anyone over the phone that she is home alone, and NEVER opens the door to strangers when she is home alone.
- Inform children that adults do not usually ask children for directions or help, but should be asking other adults. If someone in a car should stop to ask for directions, they should not go near the car.
- Inform child hat no one should ask her to look for a "lost puppy" or tell her that either of her parents is in trouble and that he will take her to mom or dad.
Common sense and parental guidance are the leading tools for protecting your children.
However, it is unreasonable to expect that parents can watch over their children at all
times. However, if you follow the guidelines presented here, teach your children about
the potential dangers, and use the tools that are available to help you, you stand a much
better chance of keeping your children safe.