10 Ways You Can Keep Your Child Safe with a GPS Tracking App

The safety of children is in the first place for all moms and dads, but at times it seems as if it’s impossible to protect them from everything suspicious awaiting them outside. You probably know that feeling if you’re a parent - if you could, you’d probably be by their side throughout the whole day, seven days a week, making sure nothing endangers them.

Yet, given that we all have daily chores to devote ourselves to, constant presence isn’t an option. Still, this doesn't mean that your youngsters can’t be under your watchful eye constantly. Modern technological progress and the development of GPS applications for smartphones, without which daily functioning is unthinkable today, allow you to know where they are at any time.

What's a GPS tracking system?

The GPS - or Global Positioning System - consists of 24 satellites deployed in Earth’s orbit. Their role consists of sending signals to the Earth's surface, enabling GPS receivers to determine details about any location on our planet. While it was used exclusively for military purposes at first, today it serves any civilian for their own needs - and these vary from case to case.

Location tracking apps for mobile phones work thanks to the combined action of GPS satellites, mobile phone towers and wifi networks. By activating the tracking system, you can determine the exact location of another device.

Knowing this, it’s easy to realize that such a feature can be of utmost importance when it comes to keeping your children safe. Here are several ways in which GPS can help you track them down when they aren’t around and avoid dangerous circumstances.

1. Always know where they are

Teenagers tend to make decisions they think are right, regardless of parental advice. This further results in visiting wrong places, hanging out with suspicious people, getting into trouble, and constant parenting headaches.

The best way for a mother or father to be calm is to always know where their child is. Having in mind the sensitive age your kids may be going through, relying on the information you get from them isn’t always reliable. This is why using certain tricks, such as installing a GPS tracker app, can bring you peace of mind. Don’t feel like you’re doing something wrong - once you know where to find your child, you’ll be able to protect them if the situation calls for it.

Speaking about dangerous and unforeseen situations, the next few points will show you what scenarios exactly you can save your kids from if you know their location anytime.

2. Track down your kids if you suspect they got lost

You may not want to believe that there’s a possibility of your kid getting lost, as you consider them capable to orient well enough in the city they live in, but let’s imagine the following scenario. You let them go for a trip with some pals to a nearby place or another city. One wrong turn or wrong bus line taken, and they eventually realize they don’t know exactly where they are.

The first thing they’ll do is try to call you and ask you to come and pick them up or at least point them in the right direction over the phone. Since they don't know the location they’re currently at, it’s your job to figure out how to help them find the right way.

In situations like this, you don’t have time to waste, and that’s why a GPS tracking app is a must - it’ll speed up the searching procedure and pinpoint the right location. This way, you can explain to your child how to find the way back and follow their progress in real time.

3. Find the child if you suspect someone may kidnap them

Parents don't even want to think about an emergency such as kidnapping, as there’s always hope that it won't happen to their kid, but we need to take all possible situations into consideration. It’s always good to be ready to react even in the worst situations - crime is a common part of the street life and we never know where it’s lurking from.

When you regularly monitor the path of your child's daily movement, you’ll get familiar with their habits and know that something’s wrong if your app shows a completely unfamiliar place as their current location. As long as your kid has a mobile phone with them, you can detect their whereabouts thanks to the application and call the police if they don’t answer your calls or messages.

4. Locate your kid in case of a car accident

Most teenagers can’t wait to reach a minimum age to drive and feel the charms of road trips and city rides - well, it feels so good to do something only grown ups can do. Yet, once they get a driver's license and start their car adventures, it may take them some time to perfect their driving skills On the other hand, many believe they’ll do it perfectly from the very first moment they step in the vehicle, although it’s far from the truth. This could be the reason why their attempts to impress their friends by increasing the speed may lead to various kinds of accidents that may have serious consequences.

Regardless of whether your child is the one who’s driving, the one who agreed to get in that car, or a responsible driver who got into trouble because of irresponsible road users, they’ll need your help. In order to be able to react, you need to know the exact location of the accident in case they call you and ask you to come over and get them.

5. Pinpoint your children if they belong to the group of kids with special needs

There are many kids with special needs in the world who require more careful supervision during their growing up period. Given the increasing presence of peer violence, the chances that children with certain conditions may become the object of ridicule or be abused in any other way are pretty high, but they may also need help due to mobility problems.

In any case, you need to be available to them and follow their movements - it’s crucial to always know where you can find them in case they can't help themselves or if they are facing any issues.

6. Receive alerts if your kid takes a strange route back home

As some apps are more advanced than others, it’s safe to say that they come will more features. An example of what sort of feature we’re talking about is geo-fencing. Geo-fencing allows parents to create a virtual fence around an area and get alerted whenever their kid exits the area. This feature is highly popular not just for wandering kids, but for people of all ages and needs. Once you create a one such geofence, you can add events. What most parents do is receive a text message if a particular device exits the geo-fence, get a call, etc. This feature can be particularly helpful for knowing exactly where your children are at all times. Not only will it give out alerts when your kid leaves the geo-fence, but it might even uncover the reason why. 

7. Receive Alerts If Your Kid Tries To Skip School

Part of keeping your children safe is to make sure they get the proper education to serve as backing in life. But for teenage boys and girls, there is far more important stuff to do than to attend school. Naturally, skipping school isn’t anything uncommon in our society. It is something that kids do and they will always do it. But that doesn’t make it right. Skipping school can be very harmless, or it can develop into a bad habit. More so, do you even know what your kid is doing when skipping school? To answer all of these questions, it’s best to use the geofencing feature we just talked about. We mentioned that geo-fencing allows you to set up a curtain around an area and get alerted when your kid leaves it. Well, you can set up curtains just like that anywhere you wish. More so, you can do it as many times as you like. So the school is a prime example of where parents should use this feature. Once you get alerted that your kid has left school early, you’ll check the app and know exactly where they’re going. It might sound overly dramatic or protective, but it is the best way receive alerts and know where they’re going.

8. Get Alerted When Your Kid Reaches A Particular Destination

Geo-fencing isn’t only useful as a tool that tells you when your kid leaves an area – it can be used to tell you if your kid makes it there successfully. This particular use of geofencing is even more popular than the previous one. Depending on where you live, the roads can be quite dangerous; especially in the winter when snow can make it difficult to drive. So what better way to make sure that your kid has indeed successfully driven to where they need to go than to use geo-location?

GPS tracking apps will tell you once your kid makes it “inside” the curtain area. That gives you enough certainty and puts the mind to rest. You won’t ever sweat about whether they’ve made it to school, band practice, or piano lessons ever again. Since many households use GPS apps for exactly this reason, it makes it an even more important feature to consider when picking GPS tracking apps. 

9. Use It As A Reminder

So far we’ve talked extensively about geofencing and how it keeps your children safe. The handy alerts are certainly there to help put any worries to rest and give you enough information on the location of your kid to know what to do next. But sometimes, we can use geo-location on GPS tracking apps as a reminder. We can do this in a particularly useful way. Let’s say that there is a store on the way home that your kid passes by regularly. If you happened to need something from it, you will be alerted once your kid gets close to it. When that happens, give your kid a ring and tell them what you need from it. On another point, you can use geofencing as a reminder when your children are going home from school. You can set up multiple reminders on the route back home and get alerted whenever your children reach each marker. This allows you to successfully track your kid and know exactly where they are from the reminders you’re getting from the app. You can set these reminders all along the route that your children take when going back from school. 

10. Know Exactly Where They’ve Been In the Past

Some GPS tracking apps come with an extensive history report feature that gives you a detailed description of where they’ve been throughout the day. Some apps even allow the history to go back days, and even weeks. The reason why this feature is so important is that you can pick up the app and review where your kid has been throughout the day. Maybe you’re not a fan of geo-fencing or direct tracking, so simply checking where they’ve been is a much better way to make sure your kid hasn’t gotten into any trouble. Many of these GPS tracking apps give you a pretty easy-to-understand UI when checking the history. Since it tracks every second and every minute of their movement, you know exactly where they’ve been at what time of the day. It is a very effective feature that is accurate and always tells the truth. Are you worried that your kid is going into the dangerous part of town? Why not check the app to make sure that’s the case? While it varies from app to app as to when exactly can you view the history report, many apps make it so parents can view the history in a matter of minutes. So that means that you aren’t GPS tracking your kid in real-time, but with a few minutes delay. Regardless, it is a feature that can make all the difference in certain situations. 

So don’t hesitate and do the right thing by installing a tracking app on your kid’s smartphone and rest assured knowing that they’re in safe hands.

App is available for free on Google Play & App Store

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