There’s a lot of excitement that comes with getting ready to go Trick-or-Treating, but as your children prepare to go to different neighborhoods in their quest for candy, safety is also something to keep in mind.
Fortunately, there are plenty of mobile apps designed keeping your family’s safety and child’s location in mind before stepping out this Halloween:
Lisa Low, a professor at Texas Tech who specializes in communication and exploring the different uses of social media, suggested the walkie-talkie app as one tool for parents to use this Halloween. It’s a way for children to easily communicate with their parents through sending voice messages and pictures in real-time by pressing a button. Messages can also be saved just in case you need to listen back.
Raids Online helps the user keep track of the different crimes reported throughout town. In the app, select the part of town you’ll be visiting, look up the different types of crimes reported there, and well as how often they’re reported.
The Nextdoor app is a private social network for you and your neighborhood’s community to see the different announcements, events and crime reported in your area. You can post to the app, as well as send private messages to those within your neighborhood.
Whether you’re going to let your trick-or-treater brave the streets alone, or if you get separated from them, you might consider downloading the Family Locator app before Halloween festivities kick off. The Family Locator is a family tracker, children safety and emergency alerts app that helps the entire family stay in touch.
Renee Rhodes, social media manager for Texas Tech University, suggests one app many may not consider in terms of safety or monitoring your child’s location: Snapchat. She shared that in some cases, she’s seen Snapchat used between children and parents for the purpose of “checking in” by sending one another snaps of where they are/what they’re doing.
While some apps will cost you a few bucks to download, all of those mentioned above come at no cost.
