Parenting | The Parenting Center

GPS Devices ? A Great Way To Keep Track Of Your Child In Public Places

Giving a cell phone to your child is enough protection when you are taking your child out in a public place, right? The child can simply call you and identify your location in the event he or she gets separated from the family. Well, this is based on the presumption that your child will retain access to the cell phone.

Expecting your child to do something to find you after getting lost do not make sense. Rather, you should opt for that technology which helps you identify the exact location of your child even if he or she is not in a position to use the technological device.

Make use of the GPS facility in-built in your cell phone to identify the location of your child. Going in for an expensive GPS enabled cell phone for your child may seem like an unnecessary expense. However, you will be very thankful when you can identify where your child is by simply pressing a button on your cell phone.

As time goes by, one can only expect these technologies to become simpler, easier to use and less expensive. GPS enabled shoes will help the parents keep track of the child even if he or she does not carry a cell phone. Currently, the best option to keep track of your child in public places is to go in for GPS devices, either built-in phones or independent devices. Further, make sure you have a non technological backup in hand.

Despite these options, the old option of contacting law enforcement authorities is always a good idea. Tell your child to stick to the nearest police officer until called for.

Filed Under: Budget, Parenting, Parents Should Know... Tagged With: Global Positioning System, Mobile phone, Technology

Preparations Parents can Make for Keeping Track of Children in Crowds

Parents who have young children are in a constant state of ensuring their children are safe and accounted for, particularly while out in public. There are many situations in which a single parent is the guardian of multiple children while out in public, and this can pose a problem if environmental factors are chaotic and dense. Regrettably, situations such as this can result in children getting lost, or even abducted. Fortunately, there are some things parents can do to ensure this does not happen to them. Below are some simple to follow preparation methods parents can utilize prior to going out.

Dress Accordingly

Dress your children in bright and easily recognizable clothes if you plan on going out to a public place. This will ensure that they are easy to spot, and will not blend in. This same principle can be applied for night time outings by utilizing glow sticks that children can wear on their wrists for easy spotting.

Always Know Where Security and or Police are

Generally, in crowded places, there are some form of security and or law enforcement deployed for ensuring safety and order. Upon venturing to these places, take note of where these individuals are, should you need them in a moments notice. This will help speed up reaction time between noticing your child is missing and taking action.

Use a Stroller

For young children, employ the services of a stroller. Many people neglect the use of a stroller in crowded places due to the difficulty of maneuvering. However, it is much easier to keep track of younger children when you know they are strapped comfortably into a stroller.

Filed Under: Child Development, Parenting Tagged With: Baby transport, Child Development, Children Youth and Family

Cell Phones Help Parents Monitor Their Children

Image by Gideon Lichfield via Flickr

In the fast paced and technologically driven society we live in today, it can be difficult to keep up with everything. This concept is particularly prevalent as it applies to parents who are working. Unfortunately, due to the demands of life, it can be exceedingly difficult to keep track of a child, whether while out together in a public place, or when they go out with friends. Fortunately, with the advances in innovative mobile devices, there are many options available that can assist parents in keeping track of their children.

Cell phones are by far one of the most widely used types of mobile devices; more people utilize cell phones now than ever before. Whether for text messaging, or one touch Internet access, cell phones are particularly attractive to teens and even younger children due to the vast array of tools that are available from one single device. While many parents are apprehensive in providing their children with cell phones, they can actually serve a very important benefit.

Most new cell phones being released utilize smart phone technology, providing specific operating platforms that allow for the downloading of applications and various customizable aspects through the phone settings. Due to these implementations, parents have a great deal of control over their child’s cell phones, including tracking capabilities. The tracking can remain private to the child if necessary, and provide a signal to the parent’s device indicating where the phone is at all times. This technology comes in handy if a child gets lost while out in a crowded public place, or if they go out with friends.

Filed Under: Parenting, Resources Tagged With: Child Development, Internet access, Mobile phone

Keeping An Eye On The Kids

Children are born innocent. They have no say into which situation they are born. Not all children get to live the charmed life. Parents try, but circumstances are not always in their control. Babies are born every day to poor parents, drug addicted parents, or they have other problems, such as birth defects and catastrophic illnesses. Any one of these situations can take its toll on a little soul.

The parents cannot always help the problem; sometimes they need help themselves. Children’s charities are there to grant that help. There are numerous charities doing amazing work for kids in need. The Make a Wish Foundation grants wishes to terminally ill children, granting them sometimes, their final wish. Through donations from companies and individuals, the Make a Wish Foundation has made the dreams come true of a child with a life-threatening illness every six minutes.

Kars for Kids takes donations of used cars and uses the profit made from the sale of the cars to do charitable works for children. They also run toy drives, and accept other donations to help children all over the country. Ronald McDonald House is a charitable organization affiliated with McDonald’s which has built housing all over the country near hospitals which treat children. Their families have a place to stay while their children are receiving life-saving treatments.

There are so many charities who need so much help. A donation to a children’s charity can mean the difference in a family having to struggle with a child’s illness and a family who gets to spend all their energy just being with their child. Consider being part of the solution.

Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: Charitable organization, Make-A-Wish Foundation, Ronald McDonald House Charities

Child Safety Personal Alarms

Image via Wikipedia

A family outing can be fun. Losing your child in a crowd will quickly turn a fun family outing into a nightmare. There are gadgets available to keep track of your child when you are out and about. A personal safety alarm for a child is a cost effective method to keep track of your child when in an unfamiliar and crowded place.

Child locator personal alarms are a great way to locate your child if you have lost them in a crowd. Using a technology commonly referred to as “Mommy I’m here”. The devices use a transmitter and receiver. The transmitter is usually a small key-chain that the parent keeps, and the receiver is a device that can be clipped onto the child, either on their clothing or shoe. Many of these kinds of alarms come in the shapes of fun animals, or a teddy bear. If you notice that your child is missing, simply press the button on the transmitter key-chain and the receiver attached to your child will sound out with a high pitched alarm. This will not only alert you to where your child is at, but it will also alert the people around the child that the child is missing.

These types of child safety alarms are perfect if you are going to a place that could potentially get very crowded. The family might be planning a trip to Disneyland, or a bustling and crowded city like New York. Having a personal safety alarm attached to your child will ensure peace of mind when in an unfamiliar and crowded place.

Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: Childcare, Disneyland, New York

Protecting Your Teen from Cyberbullying

As a parent it is your job to protect your teenagers, sometimes even from themselves! Bullying has always been a problem, but with new technology it is an even bigger problem. With the anonymity that the internet provides, teens are faced with even more vicious bullying than ever before. In fact, otherwise friendly, good kids can participate in cyberbullying. Having that screen between you and your victim seems to give people a sense of entitlement to say whatever they want with no thought to the feelings of the victim. Things are said online that an individual would never dream of saying to a person’s face.

Parents can watch for signs that their child is being bullied by being aware of a change in their child’s behavior. Does your teen appear stressed, sad, or depressed after spending time online or on the phone? Are your teen’s grades or behavior declining? Has your teen recently been withdrawing from participating in her normal activities or refusing to participate in school sports or activities that she would normally have participated in? These things could be signs that your child is being bullied and it may be time to do some investigating to get to the bottom of things.

To protect your teen from these things there are many software programs available now that can be loaded onto computers, cell phones, iPods, and other handheld devices. These programs monitor online activities and can alert parents when there is suspicion of cyberbullying. Being aware of the problem whether your child is the victim or the perpetrator can help give you the information you need to step in and get your child the help they need.

Filed Under: Child Development, Parenting Tagged With: bully, cyber-bully

Basic Overview of Net Nanny

As a parent you want to do whatever you can to protect your children. You cannot be everywhere with your children, although you wish you could, to protect them and keep them safe from harm. This includes protecting them while they are online. Even though you cannot be with your child physically all of the time, you can be aware of what they are doing while they are online and keep tabs on their online activities. There is software available to help you do this along with providing you with parental controls to limit your child’s access to harmful internet content.

One of these software programs, in fact the most popular one, is Net Nanny. In fact, Net Nanny 6.0 has received the Gold award from TopTenREVIEWS for “best internet filter software” for five years in a row. It was also names as “editor’s choice” in PC Magazine.

Net Nanny is an internet filter system that allows you, as the parent, to control the content that enters your home. It not only blocks pornography, but it also blocks other questionable websites, questionable chat rooms, and other internet dangers. You can set it to block online gambling websites or gaming sites.

The control you have with the Net Nanny can also allow you to block your child’s ability to upload information or images on the internet and can even block your child’s ability to post on forums and blogs.

One of the features many people like about the Net Nanny is its remote management abilities. When you are away from home you still have the ability to monitor and control parental settings. Another feature that is popular with the Net Nanny is that it alerts parents of potential predators, cyberbullying, or other inappropriate behavior through online chats or other instant messaging program.

Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: Child Development, Net Nanny

Teach Your Child About Internet Safety

Teaching children about online safety can sometimes be very difficult. There is so much to learn and to remember. When your children are younger it is much easier to protect them and help them learn about ways to stay safe online. However, as your child ages, and especially if they were not exposed to safety protocols online when they were very young, it can become more difficult to help them understand the importance of online safety. Teenagers are especially difficult to teach, as they feel they are immune to the problems that “happen to other people” on the internet.

Even though it may be difficult to get your child or teen to understand, as a responsible parent you need to do your part to give your child the proper “tools” to keep them safe while they are online. Go over your rules of internet use and follow through on consequences when they are not followed. Check up on your children regularly. Giving your child rules and then handing over the use of the internet without ever checking to ensure that your rules are being followed is not effective.

Some of the basic rules can include never adding anyone to their “friends” lists who they do not personally know on their online social network pages. Stay out of chat pages that include strangers. Never put any personal information online such as addresses, phone numbers, etc. Never post pictures that you do not want strangers to see. It is important to help your children understand that anything that is posted on the internet can be accessed by hackers or computer savvy individuals. Once it has been sent out into cyberspace, it can be picked up by anyone. Even if something is deleted later, there is an electronic copy of it somewhere.

Filed Under: Child Development, Parenting Tagged With: Child Safety, Internet safety

Keeping Kids Safe This Winter

There are so many things for a parent to worry about when they send their children out of the house. Who may be out there that may try to take advantage of them? What trouble may they find to get into? Protecting children is the number one responsibility that a parent has, and that means insulating them from all risks including the most basic: the elements.

The East Coast is in the midst of what may go down in history as the worst winter ever. Cities like New York are seeing big storms dumping 6 to 12 inches of snow at a time, and that means kids need to be layered up to stay warm and safe. Rapper Shaun Jay-Z Carter grew up in Brooklyn and knows how harsh the New York winters can be. He designed his Rocawear clothing line with staying warm in mind.

Rocawear features well-insulated jackets that will help block out the cold and ward off the snow. The Puffer Jacket is perfect for bitterly cold weather and comes with a fur-lined hood. The Rocawear Wool Duffel Coat is popular, as well as several leather jackets that are great for cold weather, including one just like the coat Jay-Z wore in his Empire State of Mind video shoot.

To make sure the kids are protected in cold weather, it is important to make sure they have other winter accessories as well. Rocawear offers a full line of parachute and scottie boots that are excellent for traipsing through the snow and keeping your children’s feet warm. There are also hoodies and sweatshirts for layering underneath coats to provide an extra level of warmth. For young children, there are several jacket, tees, and jeans reasonably priced that are perfect for the kids to wear throughout the day at school.

Filed Under: Child Development, Parenting Tagged With: Child Development, Clothing, Rocawear

Protecting Your Child While Online

No matter what the age of your child you can take these simple steps to help protect your child while they are online.

Keep your computer in a public area of the house. Do not allow your child to have a computer in his room or in a private room. Having a computer out in the open makes it much more difficult for a child to enter websites that are questionable and makes them more accountable for who they are talking to, etc.
Set down rules for online activities. This can include the websites they are allowed to visit, the ones they are not allowed to visit, who they can be friends with online, situations they are to avoid, and even the amount of time they can spend online.
Enforce the rules you have set. It is not enough to simply set the rules. You must follow through on monitoring them and having consequences when they are broken. Sometimes a parent has to exercise some tough love to keep their children safe.
Monitor your child’s online activities. If the computer is in the open as suggested you can simply take note of what your child is doing as you walk by. Check browsing history frequently to note where your child has been online. Note anything suspicious, even if that happens to be an empty history when you know your child has been online. An empty history is a red flag that your child was possibly doing something online that they did not want you to be aware of and erased the history before you could check it.
Install parental controls and parental monitoring software. Using a program such as Net Nanny or WebWatcher can give you an added component of internet security and allows you as a parent to control the content, websites, and interactions that your child can have online. Many of these types of programs are now available for your child’s handheld devices such as iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc. too.

Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: Child Development, Parental Control