The importance of knowing where your family members are....

Whenever I take my daughter to the mall, when she was much younger, she would so love walking up and down the aisles, examining all the toys, clothes and so on as I would look around to find something to buy for her. 

But there were a couple of occasions she wandered away and these moments were those of panic... and how not to panic when there are so many sickos around in the this world, and even in Malaysia itself, who would love nothing better then to prey on young helpless kids... 

However, for me, after a few minutes of needless panic, my naughty mischievous daughter would then put her head out from under the rows of clothing and I don't know whether to hug her or slap her for the fear she caused me...

You should know, since it was in the newspapers a couple of days ago that a total of 3,937 children, aged between 6 to 18 years old, have been reported missing between 2014 until Jan this year

It is a very scary thing and I always tell my husband it is so hard not knowing what happen to your child when you lose him/ her like this then losing them to death. With death you are forced to accept it eventually you can have a closure, but losing a child just like that and not knowing if you ever find him or her and so on is a very terrible situation as we will always be haunted with what ifs and so on...

What you should do if your child is lost (after 5 minutes) in a mall, theme park or so:

• If you somehow become separated from your child, try very hard not to panic (much easier said than done, of course). It is important if we can act quickly with a clear .
• Contact the customer service centre or a security guard quickly, so that they can coordinate with other security guards and other personnel and begin the search for your child.

• Call the police if you have to. Trust your gut instinct and don’t rely solely on employees to find your child and wait to call the police. If you cannot find your child after a cursory search, call your local police immediately.

Taking precautions:

And before all these happens, it would be wise to take precaution teach your child some basic safety such as not following any strangers at all, kicking and screaming if someone tries to take them away.

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• For young preschoolers and toddlers who love to wander off, it would be better to get them a child harness. This is actually a helpful way of keeping your young toddlers and children who for various reasons cannot seem to stay put and out of harm’s way. 
• Toddlers and preschoolers are afterall  very independent and high-energy and when you are in a busy place like in a mall or at an amusement park or zoo…his or her safety is at risk if she isn’t attached at the hip. These little bundles of joy or terror refuses to hold hands and refuses to stay put in their strollers, wanting to explore, so a harness comes in very handy..

• Set guidelines for older kids. Just because you have a worldly primary school going child, it doesn’t mean that they don’t need safety tips as well. 

• They need to be reminded time after time again that they should not accept gifts from unknown people, or follow unknown people for whatsoever reasons, and who they should expect to pick them up...(in my daughter's case it was just my husband, me, her van driver, her grandmother or a neighbour - her babysitter) and she was strictly prohibited from following anyone else. And well, if someone try to pull them away forcibly, they should scream, bite or kick..

• Same goes for your pre teens or teenagers.....
• If you let them go somewhere with their friends, set clear meeting places and a firm time limit and well, if they have a mobile phone, install a locator in their mobile phone to enable you to locate them, such as Funa - Family Locator. 

• Funa- Family Locator is an app you can install in all your children and even parents/husband/wife's phones so that you can track and know where they are without  making unnecessary calls, real time.

• You can now have the peace of mind knowing that your loved ones have safely arrived at a destination and do not have to needlessly calling their mobiles, and when they do not answer it, you start worrying. 

And one of the features I love most about Funa here would be that they have a SOS button, so you can press this to alert everyone in your group if you are in trouble.. if you had an accident, your car broke down, you missed the last bus/ train, or any such emergency and the rest of the people in the list can then check to find where you  are and be on their way to help you...

• Some of the key features of Funa Family Locator: 
  ★ FREE – you can enjoy FULL features of Funa Family Locator for free.

  
  

  ★ REAL-TIME – you get to know whereabouts of your family members.

  ★ SECURE – your location is confidential and only visible to your family members.

  ★ TRACKING & HISTORY – keep track on location history (up to 7 days).

  ★ LOCATION ALERT – you will be notified when your family and friends arrived or left a marked location.

  ★ SOS – trigger SOS alert to your family members during emergency.

  ★ RELIABLE – provide best available location result using GPS / WiFi / Cellular technologies.

  ★ OPTIMIZED – optimized battery consumption. 

So get your Funa app installed in all your family members phone today for a more peace of mind......

For more info, check out http://www.funaapp.com/

Android

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nplay.funa

iOS

https://itunes.apple.com/app/funa-family-locator/id1054864819

Now I can have a peace of mind knowing where my family members are at all time....

Note: pictures do not belong to me and are sourced from google.com and funaapp.com for decorative and illustration only