Giving your child freedom can be a difficult and scary part of parenting. But it is essential when it comes to fostering a sense of independence and teaching your teen life skills. To help give you some peace of mind we have some tools for keeping your teen safe when they are out on their own.
Override Do Not Disturb Feature
It seems to be the norm that teens have their phones on do not disturb mode. It has caused me no end of frustration when trying to get hold of my son who doesn’t pick up because his phone is on silent. But then I learnt about the do no disturb over ride feature. You can set certain contacts on androids and iphones to override the silent feature.
Old Fashioned Contacts
Make sure you have the addresses and phone numbers of their friends and their friends parents. It could really help in an emergency situation.
Safe Word
Have a safe word that your teen can use when they call you if they are trying to get out of a situation, but wanting to save face in front of friends.
Trackers
Trackers are a great way to know where your teen is. An tracker like the Paj Allround Finder allows you to track in live time. You can even set boundaries and you will receive an alert if your teen travels beyond these boundaries.The tracker monitors distance and routes taken in the last 365 days.
Safety Apps
There are some great safety apps available like Hollie Guard. Hollie guard turns your phone into a personal safety device. By shaking your phone an emergency alert along with video and audio will be sent to your specified emergency contacts.
Talking
Talking is often overlooked and we can forget that our teens do not have our life experience. Quite simply you don’t know what you don’t know. We should discuss scenarios with our teens, and the best approach to handle them. Would they know what to do in a crisis, for example if one of their friends was hurt. Or what about the very likely event that their phone runs out of battery. Do they know how to use a payphone? If we want our teens to be safe we need to teach them how.
Money
I think it’s important that teens have access to emergency money should they need to buy plasters, or use public transport. And whilst they may have a bank card, or use their phones to make payment, these can sometimes fail, they may have spent all of their money, or their hone could be flat. A pre-paid credit card like Revolut is great in these situations. Just put £10 on it and ensure your teen takes it with them and knows that a Maccy D’s isn’t an emergency!
Google Maps
Google Maps is a great tool when you can use it properly. Not just maps, but useful public transport information, and can help your teen work out timings to ensure they are home in time for their curfew.
Rules
Whilst independence is important, so are boundaries. You should agree some ground rules with teens. Your non-negotiables that they have to stick to. These will vary by age of teen and what freedom you are prepared to give, but could include:
- What Where When Who (What are you going to be doing. where will you be doing it, when and who with)
- Curfew Time
- Restricted physical boundaries and agreed place they can go
- Always Ensuring Phone is charged
- Always having emergency money with you
- Check in text messages
Conclusion
We hope you find these tools for keeping your teen safe when they are out useful. If you have anymore to add let us know in the comments.
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Yes. Great tips for keeping teens safe. Talking with them about dangers and scenarios is very important at all ages but , especially when they reach driving age.