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6 Comments Thinking We Need a Child ID Kit for Adrian
We had Nevaeh’s birthday party yesterday at a local park. It was a great time and the kids were all really good. I was not feeling good at all. I had a stomach ache on Friday all day and on Saturday I was feeling better but was not at 100% yet and I really didn’t want to cancel the party so I decided to go ahead with it.
We were there for a couple hours and the whole time the kids had been rotating between hanging out at the picnic tables with the adults and playing on the play equiptment at the park. I was sitting there chatting with my Mom and Aunt when I looked up and didn’t see Adrian. I spotted my nephew across at the park and thought “Is that him?” no…scanning the park…trying not to panic. I tell my family ” I don’t see Adrian” Everyone else’s eyes begin to dart around in search of Adrian and pretty much everyone took off in different directions hollering his name. My brother ran down to a creek that was at the park (how scary is that?), Glen ran out to an open field that Adrian had ran down earlier in the day, what everyone else was doing I don’t know it was such a blur. I was off to check the bathrooms.
I was not in a panic yet but if he hadn’t been in the bathroom I think I would have went over the edge. He was sitting on the potty playing with a toy car.This all went down in a matter of about 1 minute so it wasn’t a big ordeal but still scary.
I think I need to get a child ID kit at this point. If he ever does get away from us I want a way for people to kn0w who to call and why he doesn’t talk and such. I’m on the search now for something that he can’t/won’t take off.
It’s hard. You want them to be like the other kids. You want them to be able to go play but my eyes can’t stay on him every single solitary second. Glen and I are very cautious parents, we watch our kids so carefully but really, it only takes a second a 1/2 second to lose sight of a child.
Joy, We’ve had the same nightmares with our son who has Down syndrome and Autism. Check your county sheriff for a program called ‘Project Lifesaver’ which provides a GPS bracelet they wear on their ankle or wrist. It’s the size of a wristwatch and our son is so used to it he gets worried when it’s not on. He is non-verbal, so it puts our mind at ease. If he disappears we can call 911 and they’ll instantly locate him. You could look up Arapahoe county sheriffs office in Colorado for more info. It is a free program, and they come to your house once a month to change the batteries. Now we change the batteries ourself. I’ve heard this program is going nation wide. Good luck and God bless, Mark Dernell.
My son is autistic, he is 38. Last Sunday I was taking a nap after a sleepless night, He jumped the six foot fense and went for a “walk”. If you find a tracking device, please let me know. Just because they grow up doesn’t mean you can take your eyes off them, even for half a second.
One of the boy’s I work with has an ID that I think is pretty nifty. It latches onto the velcro on his shoes (connecting the two pieces of velcro). There is enough space on the front to put his name and phone-number, and on the back to put his diagnosis and address. As far as I know, he’s never even made the effort to remove it.
It is similar to this product here:
http://www.mypreciouskid.com/shoe-safety-sticker-products.html
Good luck!
Thank you so much for advice.
Mark, The Project Lifesaver program sounds awesome! I will be looking into that! If we don’t have one here it sounds like something that is worth advocating for. Thank you for passing along the information.
Diana, That must have been so scary when your son wandered off! I did see some devices on amazon’s website but they were geared more toward children from what I saw. The program Mark mentioned may be something that you could look into in your state.
Cale, I actually ordered that last night! Thank you for the advice, that seemed like the best option for now but I’m not sure that he’ll leave it alone, I guess I’ll find out soon!
I’m going to do some more reading and research on these child id kids and tracking devices and write another post on it. It sounds like a very common concern that we all have to take really seriously. Thanks everyone for you input it’s invaluable to me.
I am a big fan of SafetyTat http://www.safetytat.com/ I like them because they go on and stay on. My daughter has autism and food allergies so these were great for camp, school field trips, etc.
[...] and Safety Written by Joy on June 8, 2009 – 9:06 pm – In light of my little escapade with Adrian I thought it might be beneficial to someone for a safety post about autism. I am learning and [...]