Tattoo your kids?

The last two times my kids stayed with their grandparents, my oldest got lost. Once was with my mom at City Museum in St. Louis. The other was at a park with my in-laws. I feel like we have hammered him about not running off when he gets excited, but he keeps saying he forgets. So when I hear that 90% of parents experience this, it makes me feel a little better. I haven't decided whether I will purchase the temporary tattoos or not, but I don't think they're a bad idea. I don't like the ones where you write your number on the child with a marker. What's the point of the tattoo then? My kids have never been lost long enough for a stranger to find them, look at their arm and call the number. It's usually just a couple of minutes. But it is a scary thought.Have any of you used these temporary tattoos? What do you think about them?

Planning a family outing anytime soon? If you have young children this is an eye opener. The Center to Prevent Lost children says 90% of you will experience an unplanned separation from your child.

Chandra Bill shows us a parent-tested device that could give you some piece of mind. Any parent who's ever lost sight of their child for even a few seconds knows the panic that sets in.

"She ducked under one of those clothes, those carousels and my heart went out of my chest. But like I said, it was probably like ten seconds." Department of Justice studies indicate 2000 kids get lost every day. A Wander Wear survey found parents rank losing a child five times more concerning to them than terrorism.

"When my son was a toddler we went to a mall with a babysitter to look at appliances. I turned around and asked my baby sitter.. where's EJ? In a flash he was gone. We found him outside the store at a fountain."

In response to situations like that a mother of three invented a temporary tattoo on which you can write your cell number and stick it on your child, adding another tool to the parenting arsenal." The safetytat is designed to reconnect parent and child as quickly as possible if they're ever separated. We talked to parents to see if they'd use it.

"I would definitely use it." "Would you ever use something like this?" Parent: "I would definitely consider it. Especially since it doesn't contain personal information like the child's name or my name and it just has a phone number, so yeah, definitely."

"Kids nowadays they get the tattoos they can put on their skin they think they're cool and they like the way they look. So from a child's perspective I think it would be really neat to wear it."

The tattoos apply without water and won't rub off. They last about two weeks, come in a variety of child-friendly colors and designs and cost less than a dollar a piece.

"It's kind of like a funny band-aid" "I would definitely use it, even at the beach, or when we go to the store. Everytime we walk out the door. I would not mind using them at all." "Any kind of traveling that you would do. Anytime you went any place. to a supermarket." "Definitely like the theme park or the beach when it's crowded. The mall possibly." "Probably Disney. the big parks, big places. If you're taking a long trip or even the beach. To lose a kid on the beach is not hard, it just takes seconds.

A word of caution, however. Experts recommend parents use a multi-prong approach to summer safety and much of that involves preparing your child should they ever lose sight of you.

Nancy McBride/Ctr. For Missing & Exploited Children "Tell your child not to look for you. If they get lost, stay close to where they got lost and don't ever go out in the parking lot. You should be looking for them, not the other way around. If you've done that cursory search and they're not around. You call law enforcement."

Nancy Mcbride handles the educational arm of the National Center for Missing and Exploited children. She says nothing takes the place of adult supervision.

"It's easy to get distracted. Keep your eyes on the child. And understand that the people who harm children in 40 percent of the cases, the most dire cases, they're opportunists. So, make sure they don't have the access or the opportunity. But that's our job as the parents and the trusted adults."

The material used to make safetytats is FDA approved. In addition to loss prevention, safetytats have been expanded to include health information, like peanut allergies.. to let people know if a child has special needs, such as autism. They also come in Spanish.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

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