Missing Persons — Help for Families
If someone you love is missing, this page walks with you: what to do first, in order, and how to keep every piece of it in one place. And if nobody is missing today, this page also teaches how to prepare ahead of time — cards, fingerprint kits, and plans made in a calm season, so nothing has to be gathered while you are hurting.
Everything here follows the same method I keep for my own records: everything written down, in order, with dates and names, kept in one place. A family in pain should never have to hold the whole thing in their head.
If someone is in danger right now, call 911 first.
This page is a guide. It is not an emergency service, and it cannot send help. Call 911, then come back here for the next steps.
The first hours — what to do first, in order
- Call the police right away and make the report. Go to your local police station, or call their line, and report your person missing now — today, this hour.
- Write down the record of that report. The date, the time, the officer's name, and the case number. Keep them on the family's records page (below). Every later step stands on this report.
- If the missing person is a child, call the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678), with the police report. They help families and police search for children, free.
- Enter your person into NamUs — the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, at namus.gov. It is the free, official national system. A family can create the entry themselves and add to it as things come in: photos, descriptions, the case number.
- Start the family's records page today (next section), and keep it going. Do not trust memory in a season like this. Write everything down.
There is NO waiting period to report a missing person.
You do not have to wait 24 hours — or any hours. That is a myth, and it costs families the most important hours there are. A person can be reported missing the moment they are missing. If anyone tells you to wait, ask for the report to be taken anyway, and write down the name of the person who told you to wait.
Preserve everything — and keep one records page
Do not clean up after them. Do not clean their room, wash their clothes, empty their trash, or delete anything from their phone, computer, or accounts. What looks like nothing may be the piece that finds them, or the proof of what happened. Originals stay original — leave things as they are and let the police tell you what they need.
The family's records page
Keep one calm page — a notebook, or a page on your own device — the way I keep mine: in order, dated, in one place. Your records in this app live with you, on your own device. On it, keep:
- The timeline: last seen — when, where, who was there, what they were wearing, what they said, what they carried.
- Recent, clear photos of your person, and their full description: height, weight, hair, eyes, scars, tattoos, glasses, braces, medicines they need.
- Every case number in one place: the police case number, the NamUs number, the NCMEC number if it is a child.
- Every call and tip, logged: the date, the time, who called, what they said, and what was done about it. Log a tip instead of chasing it alone — give it to the police and write down that you did.
- Every letter and answer from every agency, in the order they came.
When an officer, a court, or an agency asks, everything is already gathered. You are not searching while you are hurting.
The family's records page — working, on your own device
The flyer, done safely
A flyer helps — strangers cannot look for a face they have never seen. But a flyer also travels everywhere, so it is built carefully:
- What belongs on it: their name, age, a clear recent photo, height and description, where and when they were last seen, what they were wearing, and the police phone number for tips.
- What never goes on it: your home address, and your personal phone number. Use the police number, and if you want an email, make a new one for this only. A flyer with your own number invites calls no family should have to take.
Real help is free. Anyone who asks for money to find your person is running a scam.
Police, NamUs, and NCMEC never charge a family. But desperate families are targeted: people who offer to “search” for a fee, fake sightings offered for money, and ransom messages that are not real. Do not pay. Write the call down in your records page and give it to the police — the scam call itself is evidence.
Working with police and the public — and the long road
Share updates through the police where you can, so a tip line stays one line and sightings reach the people searching. If your family keeps a public page, let one person keep it, post only what the police agree should be public, and log every tip that comes in on the records page.
Some searches end quickly. Some take a long time, and this page will not pretend otherwise. On the long road:
- Ask for case reviews. A family may ask the police to review the case, and to look again with fresh eyes. Anniversaries and milestones are natural times to ask, and to put your person's name and face before the public again.
- Age progression, for children. NCMEC can make age-progressed images of a missing child — what they may look like now — so the search keeps matching the child as they grow.
- DNA family reference samples. Police can take DNA samples from close family members, through the police, to compare against unidentified persons. It is free, it is done through the official case, and it can give a name back to someone who cannot give their own.
- Keep the doors open. Where the law allows, ask before a missing person's phone number or accounts are closed, and re-check their NamUs entry and unidentified-persons records from time to time — with a helper beside you, because those checks are heavy to carry alone.
For the family itself
A missing person is not only a search. It is a house where nobody knows how to wait. If you are in crisis, you can call or text 988 in the United States, free, day or night. Faith and community doors — your ministry, your church, your people — are real help too; let them carry the meals, the calls, and the sitting-with.
Nobody should carry this alone, and nobody carrying it should be doubted while they are hurting. Not knowing is its own grief. Your records page, your questions, and your pushing are not too much — they are what love looks like on paper.
Prepare ahead of time — cards for the people you love
The best time to gather a person's information is a calm time, before anything happens — the same ahead-of-time method I keep for my own records. A family that has already made the card never has to build a flyer on the worst day of its life.
The make-ahead card
For each child first — and also for elders and any family member who could not find their way home alone — make a card that holds:
- A recent, clear photo — updated every year for children, and more often for little ones, because children change fast.
- Their name, physical description (height, weight, hair, eyes, marks), and their medical needs and medicines.
- The family's contact, the way the safe flyer carries it — through the police number, not your home address.
You build the card yourselves, from this teaching. It lives only in your hands and on your own device. This app receives nothing — no photo, no name, nothing.
Two sizes, from the same card
- Wallet size — small enough that a parent carries it every day, in a wallet or phone case.
- Flyer sizes — a full letter page, and a poster size, ready to print the moment they are ever needed.
One person's information, made once, in every size — so if the day ever comes, you hand the police a finished flyer instead of starting from nothing.
The card builder — fill once, print all three sizes
Where to get official cards and kits in your own area
Free, official help with this exists near you — choose your own location and find it at its official source:
- Your local police or sheriff's department — many run free child-ID events and hand out ID kits.
- Your state's missing-children clearinghouse — every state has one, and it serves families in that state.
- NCMEC — family resources, at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678).
Prefer the free official kit from your own area's agency over anyone selling one. A card or a kit a family has to pay for is not the official door.
Fingerprinting kits for your kids
A fingerprint card made ahead of time gives police something certain to work with. Here is the honest path:
- Free from the official doors: police and sheriff child-ID events often fingerprint children on the spot and hand the card to the parent; state clearinghouse programs do the same.
- The home ink card: a simple ink fingerprint card can also be done carefully at home — clean dry hands, one finger at a time, rolled gently from one side of the nail to the other, on the card that comes with the kit. It does not have to be perfect to be useful, and the official event card is better where you can get one.
- The card stays home. It is never uploaded, never sent to this app, never handed to a company. It lives in your own safe place, and it is handed only to police if your child is ever missing.
The fingerprint record card — print yours here
Two ways to make it. Way one: print the blank card and write on it by hand. Way two: type the details in the lines on screen, then print the filled card. What you type lives only in this page, on this device — it is not saved, it is not sent, and it is gone when you close the page. The Clear button wipes it sooner. No fingerprint images are ever captured here — this card is ink on paper, made by hand.
How to make good prints
- Use a stamp pad or ink pad, or washable ink made for fingerprints. Wash and dry the hands first.
- Press and roll each finger once — roll gently from one side of the nail to the other — one finger per box, in the order on the card.
- Do it at home, in a calm time, or at a community card-and-fingerprint event (hosting one is taught below, on this page).
- Keep the finished card somewhere safe, with your family's important papers.
- Make a new card as a child grows — at least once a year — because the prints and the description change.
Keep it current
A card only helps if it is true. Take a new photo as children grow. Change the medical information when it changes. Once a year, check that the card and the fingerprint card are where your family thinks they are.
Hosting a card and fingerprint event in your community
A person, a ministry, a school, or a community group can host an event where families in their own community make these cards. Here is how, in order:
- Start with the authorities. Invite your local police or sheriff's department to run the fingerprinting and ID part officially — many departments already hold child-ID events and bring their own kits. Your state missing-children clearinghouse is the second call.
- Find partners and a place. A library, a school, a ministry or church, or a community center hosts. Each partner knows their part: the place, the tables, the welcoming, the official kit work.
- What happens at the event. Each family makes its ahead-of-time card — photo and information, in wallet and flyer sizes — children are fingerprinted with the kit, and everything goes home with the family that day. Families can also make the printable fingerprint record card at the event; it goes home with the family like everything else, and the host keeps no copy of it.
- Volunteers. Named ahead of time, checked with the host organization, and never alone with a child or with a family's information.
- Free to families, always. Kits come free from the agency wherever possible. No family is ever charged for a card, a fingerprint, or for walking in the door.
- Getting people there. Flyers at schools, libraries, shelters, and ministries; the event listed with the local agency; calm and welcoming words. This is preparedness, not fear.
- Accessibility at the event. Sign language, large print, read-aloud help, and a quiet corner — the same standards as the rest of this app.
The host keeps NOTHING.
No copies of any child's photo, information, or fingerprints are ever kept, photographed, or stored by the host, the volunteers, or this app. The family leaves holding the only copy. That is the whole design, and it is what makes the event safe to come to.
Preparing your kids' safety — tracking devices and live GPS
Tracking can be one layer of a child's safety, set up ahead of time, the same way the card is. Taught here plainly — the real choices, and their honest limits.
The choices, named plainly
- Location sharing on the child's own phone — the family location tools built into the phone itself, shared with the parent's phone.
- Devices made for children — GPS watches a child wears, and clip-on trackers that ride in a backpack, a jacket pocket, or a shoe. Made-for-kids GPS services include AngelSense and Jiobit.
- Item trackers — small tags like Apple AirTag and Tile. The honest note: Apple says AirTags are made for items, not for tracking people or children. They beep and they alert phones nearby that a tag is traveling with them, so an item tracker is the weak choice for a child. The page would rather tell you that now than have you learn it on a hard day.
These names are resources only. This app is not in partnership with any company for advertising and receives no money for including any business name.
Set it up WITH your child
The child knows what the device is, where it is, and what it does. Tracking for safety is never a secret from the child who carries it. Then check it together, the way you would check a smoke alarm — on a schedule, not on a hope:
- The battery is charged.
- The location is updating, and true.
- The alert reaches the parent's phone, and the parent hears it.
Build the family routine around it: check-in times, and a plan the child knows — if you are lost or scared, stay where you are, find a named safe adult, and remember the card in your pocket.
One layer — not a promise
No device is a promise. Batteries die. Signals drop. Clothing changes — the tracker sewn into Tuesday's jacket is not on Wednesday's. The device is one layer. The ahead-of-time card, the fingerprint card, and a child who knows the plan are the other layers. Do not lean on one layer alone.
Privacy and safety lines
- A child's location is the child's private information. Keep the tracking account locked with your own strong password, and never share the login.
- Tracking is for your own child, set up openly. Never track another person in secret — secretly tracking an adult is against the law in many places, and against this program's rules everywhere.
- If your family is fleeing abuse: shared accounts and trackers can expose where the fleeing family is. Talk to a domestic-violence advocate or the police before using any shared tracking — your safety comes before any device.
- Ask the school. Some schools and programs have device rules. Ask, and place the tracker where the school's rule allows.
Elders who get lost — keeping them safe, and the way back home
The same preparedness, for elders — including elders losing their sight, and elders living with memory loss, who may walk out on a familiar road and not know the way back. The goal is not to cage them. It is to keep them living their life, with a safety net under it.
Identification made ahead of time
An elder who cannot explain themselves still carries the answer — if the family put it there ahead of time:
- An ID card in every coat and pocket — name, condition in plain words (“memory loss,” “low vision”), and the family phone number.
- Name labels sewn into clothing, and their name and the family number inside their hat, coat, and bag.
- A medical ID bracelet with their condition and the family phone number, worn every day.
Made ahead of time, like the children's cards — in wallet and card sizes, kept current.
Programs made for this — choose your own location
- Project Lifesaver — a program run through local sheriff and police departments in many areas: the elder wears a small transmitter bracelet, and trained search teams can find them with it. Often free or low-cost.
- Silver Alert — the state alert system for missing elders. It is asked for through the police when a missing-person report is made.
- MedicAlert + Alzheimer's Association Safe Return — an ID service with a 24-hour emergency line, so whoever finds your elder can reach help and family day or night.
Ask your local sheriff or police department which of these runs in your area — that is the choose-your-own-location step, at the official source. These names are resources only. This app is not in partnership with any company for advertising and receives no money for including any business name.
Tracking for elders — dignity first
GPS watches and pendants made for elders, and GPS insoles that slip into their everyday shoes — the shoes they actually wear — can be set up with the elder's own knowledge, or with the knowledge of the person who legally decides for them. Dignity first: the elder keeps their independence and their walks. The device is a safety net, not a cage. And the limits are the same as the children's: batteries, signal, and checking on a schedule — tested, not assumed.
Keeping them safe at home
- Register ahead of time. Many police departments keep a registry for residents with dementia and special needs — a recent photo and their information, given before anything happens. Ask yours.
- Neighbors who know them — and who have the family's number.
- Door chimes or alarms that tell the family someone is leaving, so a wandering night is heard in its first minute.
- Familiar, lit walking routes — the roads they have always walked, kept as safe and known as they can be.
How they find their way back
The ID on them speaks when they cannot: a card or a bracelet that says their name, that they have memory loss or low vision, and who to call. And the people along their road are taught the plan ahead of time — the shopkeepers on their route, their ministry or church, their building staff — so a confused elder meets a helper who knows the plan, not a stranger.
If an elder is lost
- Call the police immediately. The same rule: there is no waiting period. Say plainly: elder, memory loss or low vision, and every minute matters.
- Search the dangerous places nearby first — water, busy roads, and the route they always walk — while help comes.
- Give the police the ahead-of-time card and the recent photo — this is the hour the calm-season preparation was made for.
- Ask about Silver Alert, and Project Lifesaver search teams if your elder is enrolled.
Blind elders, specifically
- A white cane and reflective gear, so drivers and helpers can see them and understand.
- Their contact card in raised print and braille as well as ink — theirs to read with their own hands.
- The voice path on their phone set up and practiced in a calm time, so on a lost day it is already familiar — calling home by voice, and help that answers.
- Neighbors and route helpers who know to speak their name and offer an elbow — not to grab, not to steer in silence, but to say who they are and walk beside them.
When someone tries to take your child
The stranger danger warning matters, but it is not the whole truth. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) teaches that most child abductions involve a relative or someone the child knows. A known face can be the danger: the other parent, another family member, a friend, a neighbor, or a trusted person in the community. That is why this section teaches both the public moment and the private pattern.
If a taking is happening now, call 911. These steps never come before that call.
If it happens in front of you
Make the danger unmistakable. Do not shout only “Help.” Shout the facts bystanders can act on:
“He is taking my child — call 911!”
Use the words that fit the moment: “She is taking my child,” “This person does not have permission,” or “That is not his child.” Then point to one person and give that person one job: “You — call 911.” A named job is harder to ignore than a general cry.
- Hold your child and make yourself hard to move. Get low, hold your child close, and drop your weight. Do not turn the child into a tug-of-war rope; protect the child's head, neck, airway, and body first.
- Keep calling out the facts. Say your child's name and that the person is taking them without permission. Witnesses remember clear facts.
- If the person gets the child into a vehicle, shout the license plate, make, model, color, and direction of travel out loud. Type it into your phone, photograph it if you can do so safely, and repeat it to the 911 dispatcher. Do not chase a moving vehicle on foot or put yourself in front of it.
- Call NCMEC after 911: 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678). Give them the police report and case number when you have them.
Your child's practiced part matters. A child who has practiced can scream, “You're not my parent!” and “Call 911!”, drop to the ground, kick, pull away, and make noise. NCMEC's attempted-abduction research found that most children who escaped did something proactive: they walked or ran away, yelled, kicked, or pulled away. The practice scripts below teach the words before a child needs them.
If the danger builds in private
Private takings often begin as a visit, an errand, or “just a quick trip.” Prevention is paper, people, place, and a plan the child knows:
- Use a public exchange place. Choose a staffed public location or a police-station safe exchange zone where one is offered. Arrive and leave by a route where other people are present.
- Do not go alone when the risk is known. Bring a second adult whose job is to witness, remember, and call for help.
- Enforce pickup lists with identification. Schools, child care, teams, and places of worship should hold the written list of who may take the child and check identification. A verbal change is not enough when a pattern exists.
- Tell the child the plan. Who is coming, where the exchange happens, and what the child should do if the plan changes. The family code word on the Be Findable page belongs here: an unexpected pickup fails without it.
- Log threats and “jokes.” Write down threats, hints, sudden interest in passports or travel, and jokes about taking or hiding the child — with the date, time, exact words, and who heard them. A dated pattern is information a court can use.
When the other parent is the risk
Hear the hard part plainly: without a custody order, police in many places may treat one parent taking a child as a civil custody dispute and may have limited power to act. That is not a reason to wait. It is the reason the court paper comes first, while things are calm enough to get it.
Build the ahead-of-time doors taught on the Travel page at Children who must not fly: a custody order with travel restrictions, supervised visitation or exchanges where the risk is real, enrollment in the Children's Passport Issuance Alert Program (CPIAP), and — where a court orders it — the child's passport held so it cannot be used for a sudden departure.
If an order exists and is violated, it is enforceable paper. Keep a copy with you. Make a police report for every violation, every time, and show the officer the order. Ask the court that issued it about an emergency motion. If the child is taken out of the United States to obstruct lawful parental rights, the federal International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1204, may apply; it carries a fine, up to three years in prison, or both. An international return may also be sought through the Hague Convention process described below.
Family members, friends, and people in the community
A familiar person may not need to overpower a child. The child may go willingly because the face is trusted. The protection is an exact list:
- The child knows exactly who may take them.
- Anyone else — even someone the child knows and likes — needs the code word or a live call to the parent or guardian first.
- Schools, child care, sports teams, ministries, churches, and other institutions receive the same list in writing.
- An adult who takes a child “to help” without permission is reported the same way as any other unauthorized taking.
Kindness is not a custody document.
A kind offer does not replace permission, an order, or the pickup list. When permission is refused or unclear, the child stays.
After any attempt — even a failed one
- Make the police report. An attempt matters. Reports establish the pattern before a later taking can be called a surprise.
- Tell the school or child-care provider in writing. Name the person, the date, what happened, and the police report number. Ask for the pickup list to be tightened and identification checked.
- Save the record. Messages, call logs, photographs, video, witness names, and your dated account go into the family record without editing the originals.
- Use the court door. If the person has legal standing, or may claim it, ask the family court about emergency protection, supervised exchanges, travel limits, or a changed custody order.
The attempt is information. Write it down. Report it. Paper it.
What kidnapping is — and what it costs
This part uses plain words, but law is local. States define kidnapping, custodial interference, and false imprisonment in their own statutes, and the exact charge depends on the facts and the place. A lawyer or prosecutor decides the charge; this page teaches a family what facts to preserve and why confinement counts.
The plain definitions
- Kidnapping can be a taking or a holding. It generally means unlawfully taking, carrying away, seizing, or confining a person against their will by force, threat, fear, or trick, and moving them or keeping them in a place they cannot freely leave.
- Confinement counts. Holding a person in a room, car, home, or other place they cannot leave can be kidnapping even if they were never carried to another place. Being inside a familiar building does not make the confinement lawful.
- False imprisonment is the smaller sibling. It generally means unlawfully restraining a person's freedom to leave without the added facts that raise a case to kidnapping under the local statute. It is still a crime, and it may also support a civil case.
- A trick can be force by fraud. A ride, errand, emergency, or rescue offered under a lie can be the means of a taking. The victim does not lose protection because the first step looked voluntary.
- A parent is not above the law. State custodial-interference or parental-kidnapping law may charge a parent who takes or keeps a child in violation of another person's custody rights. Federal law separately addresses international parental kidnapping under § 1204.
- Intent and hiding draw an important line. A late return, standing alone, is not the same as keeping a child past the return time with intent to withhold, conceal, or flee. Write down the statements, concealment, travel, and refusal to return — those facts matter.
The Minister's lived example: confinement inside her own home
“My ex-fiancé wouldn't let me leave my bedroom to go to the bathroom, and when police came they said it was kidnapping and intimidation and assault because he bit my arm as well.”
That example stands under the confinement teaching for a reason: a person does not have to be carried across a state line, or even out of a house, before the law can see a holding. Not being allowed to leave one room — down to being denied a trip to the bathroom — is confinement. The bite was the assault the police named beside it. The relationship did not rename the acts.
The consequences
- Federal kidnapping — 18 U.S.C. § 1201. Where federal law applies, kidnapping is punishable by imprisonment for any term of years or for life. If the death of any person results, the punishment is death or life imprisonment. A federal attempt under § 1201 carries up to 20 years. The federal statute also contains a special 20-year minimum for certain offenses involving a child when the adult offender is not a parent, grandparent, sibling, aunt, uncle, or person with legal custody of the child.
- International parental kidnapping — 18 U.S.C. § 1204. Removing a child under 16 from the United States, attempting to do so, or keeping the child outside the United States to obstruct lawful parental rights is punishable by a fine, up to three years in prison, or both.
- State consequences vary. States set their own names, felony levels, and sentencing ranges for kidnapping, attempted kidnapping, custodial interference, assault, intimidation, and false imprisonment. An attempted taking can be prosecuted as a serious felony; the police report from the attempt is the paper that starts it.
- Family-court consequences. A parent who takes or hides a child may lose custody or time, be limited to supervised access, and be ordered to pay search and enforcement costs. The criminal case and the custody case are separate doors.
- Hague return is civil, not a criminal sentence. In a covered international case, a court may order the child's return to the country of habitual residence so that country's courts can decide custody. That return process is separate from any criminal charge.
Real cases, and what came of them
Every result below was checked during this build. The full source table stands in the build report for this page.
Chatwin v. United States, 326 U.S. 455 (1946)
The Supreme Court reversed federal kidnapping convictions because the government had not proved the essential element that the young person was held against her will. Chatwin keeps the heart of the crime where it belongs: involuntary restraint. Fear or deception can hold a person, but a kidnapping case must prove the person was held against their will.
Ariel Castro — Cleveland, 2013
Castro pleaded guilty to 937 counts, including kidnapping, rape, and aggravated murder, after holding three women in his home for years. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole plus 1,000 years. The result makes the confinement rule plain: a house can be the place of kidnapping.
Phillip Garrido — California, 2011
Phillip Garrido pleaded guilty to kidnapping and sexual-assault counts for taking 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard and holding her for 18 years. He was sentenced to 431 years to life in prison.
Brian David Mitchell — federal court, 2011
Mitchell was convicted of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart and transporting a minor across state lines for illicit sexual conduct. The U.S. Department of Justice records the result as life in federal prison; reporting on the sentence states life without the possibility of parole.
Abbott v. Abbott, 560 U.S. 1 (2010)
The Supreme Court held that a parent's ne exeat right — the right to require consent before the child leaves the country — is a right of custody under the Hague Convention. The decision made the Convention's return process available, subject to its exceptions; it did not turn the civil return case into a criminal kidnapping prosecution.
Lozano v. Montoya Alvarez, 572 U.S. 1 (2014)
The Supreme Court unanimously held that the Hague Convention's one-year period is not extended by equitable tolling when the taking parent conceals the child. After one year, the court may consider whether the child is now settled. The practical lesson is urgency: begin the return process and the paper trail immediately.
Christian Gerhartsreiter — Massachusetts, 2009
Gerhartsreiter, who had used the name “Clark Rockefeller,” was convicted in Massachusetts of parental kidnapping for taking his daughter during a supervised visit. He received four to five years in state prison on the kidnapping count and a concurrent two-to-three-year term for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. He was later convicted in California of first-degree murder in a separate case and sentenced to 27 years to life.
The name of the crime depends on the taking, not on who the person is to you. Parent, family member, friend, partner, or stranger: the relationship may explain access, but it does not supply permission.
More real cases and the court-preparation teaching stand on Your Legal Rights.
Scripts for parents — practice the words before they are needed
Practice in a calm voice, the way a family practices a fire drill. Do not make the rehearsal frightening. Short practices, repeated over time, help the body remember when fear makes thinking hard.
Use the child's own parent name where these scripts say “Mom” or “my grown-up.” The words below are models; a family may change the labels, but it should not weaken the refusal, the code-word check, or the instruction to reach a safe adult.
Script 1: “Help me find my puppy”
Parent, teaching first: “A safe adult does not ask a child to help search, carry, or find something. If anyone asks you to go with them to help, your answer is no, and you come to me or another adult on your list.”
Practice lure: “Can you help me find my puppy? He ran that way.”
Child: “No. I don't know you. I'm going to my grown-up.”
Child's action: Turn away, move fast to the parent or named safe adult, and tell what happened.
Script 2: “Your mother sent me — she's hurt”
Parent, teaching first: “A real family emergency still uses the code word or a call I can check. A frightening story is not proof.”
Practice lure: “Your mother sent me. She's hurt. Come with me right now.”
Child: “What is the word?”
If there is no correct word, the child says: “No. I call my mom first. That is always allowed.”
Child's action: Stay where people can see them, call the parent, or go to a teacher, cashier, or other named safe adult.
Script 3: Candy, a ride, or a gift
Parent, teaching first: “A treat, a gift, or a ride does not change the rule. You do not go toward the car, and you do not take the item.”
Practice lure: “Do you want candy? I have some in my car,” or “I'll give you a ride. Get in.”
Child: “No. I don't go with you. I'm going to my grown-up.”
Child's action: Do not reach for the item, do not lean toward the vehicle, and do not argue. Move away toward people and tell a safe adult.
Script 4: The code word — even for a face the child likes
Parent, teaching first: “Anyone who truly comes from me can say our word. If they do not say it, you do not go — even if you know them, even if you like them, and even if they say I changed my mind.”
Practice pickup line: “Your dad said I should take you today.”
Child: “What is the word?”
Wrong word or no word — child: “No. I have to call first. That is always allowed.”
Child's action: Stay with the teacher, coach, or other responsible adult until the parent confirms through the agreed method.
Script 5: If someone grabs the child
Parent, teaching first: “This is the one time you do not have to be polite or quiet. Yell, drop, kick, pull away, and keep making noise.”
Child, as loudly as possible: “You're not my mom! You're not my dad! Call 911!”
Child's action: Drop their weight, kick, pull away, run toward people, and keep yelling the facts. Practice the words as a game at home so the loud voice is familiar; do not practice by having an adult frighten or grab the child by surprise.
Script 6: Who to run to
Parent, teaching first: “Run toward help you can identify: a parent with children, a cashier, or a uniformed worker behind a counter. Go behind the counter area only if the worker directs you; the first job is to be seen and heard.”
Child to the safe adult: “Someone tried to take me. Please call 911 and call my parent.”
Child's action: Stay with that adult in a public place until a parent, guardian, or police officer arrives.
The tricky-people rules for parents
- A safe adult does not ask a child for help finding a pet, carrying a package, giving directions from a car, or solving an adult problem.
- A safe adult does not ask a child to keep a secret from the child's parent or guardian.
- A safe adult does not ask a child to go somewhere, get into a vehicle, or change the pickup plan without telling the parent or guardian.
- A familiar uniform, a friendly title, or being known in the community does not erase these rules.
Known-person pressure
Practice pressure line: “Your uncle said it's fine. You know me. Don't make this difficult.”
Child: “I call my mom first. That is always allowed.”
Child's action: Do not debate the relationship. Call, text, or ask the responsible adult nearby to call.
By age — and for a child who does not speak
- Little ones: One main rule is enough: stay where your grown-up can see you. Add the loud words and one safe-adult destination through gentle practice.
- Older children: Teach the full scripts, the code-word rule, the phone rules, and what to do if the phone is dead: find the named safe adult and ask them to call.
- Children who do not speak: Put the same lines on a picture or symbol card, a communication board, or a speech-generating device, so one tap says “No,” “Help,” “Call 911,” or “You're not my parent.” Practice the tap. Speech is invited, never forced, and a tapped line counts as the child's voice.
How to talk to an adult you trust
Telling is its own safety skill. A child needs more than the instruction “tell an adult.” The child needs names, places, opening words, and permission to keep going if the first adult fails to act.
Build the trusted-adult list with your child
Choose more than one adult, in more than one place — home, school, family, and a place of worship or community — so no single blocked door ends the telling. A trusted adult is someone who listens, believes the child deserves help, and acts. Write the list where the child can reach it.
Opening words a child can practice
- “I need to tell you something and I need you to listen.”
- “Something happened and I don't feel safe.”
- “Someone told me to keep a secret and it feels wrong.”
- “I need help, and I need you to call my parent.”
Telling is never tattling when someone is hurt, frightened, touched in a way that feels wrong, threatened, or told to keep a dangerous secret. Telling is how the child gets protection.
If the first adult does not listen or act, tell the next one — and the next.
Being ignored, doubted, or told to wait is never the child's fault. The child keeps telling until an adult listens and takes action. Adults who work with children should hear this as their duty: the child's job is to tell; the adult's job is to act.
For the parent: how to receive a telling
- Believe first. Do not cross-examine the child in the first telling.
- Stay calm. A steady adult makes the next sentence possible.
- Write it down in the child's own words. Date it, keep the wording exact, and do not clean it up.
- Act. Protect the child, contact the proper door, and tell the child what you are doing next.
A child who is believed once learns that telling works — and keeps telling.
For a child who does not speak
Telling can be a symbol tapped on a board, a picture selected, a drawing, a sign, or an acted scene. Every language the child has counts. Adults should slow down, offer the child's own communication tools, and never treat the absence of spoken words as the absence of a report.
The system that holds it all: Be Findable
The cards, the fingerprint kits, the tracking, and the elder teachings on this page all answer one question in the hard hour: what do we hand the police? The Be Findable system is where that page is built — one sheet with the number, the carrier, the IMEI, the car, the contacts in order, and the family code word, filled in here in the app, saved on your own device, and printed twice: one copy for your person, one that stays home. It has a door for yourself, a door for your child, and a door for your elder — the same system, three ways in.
Free Grants and Free Resources for This Section
Free doors for this section: the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, 1-800-843-5678, is free; NamUs (namus.gov) is free; the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is 988; local help is 2-1-1. Real help never charges a family — anyone who asks for money to find your person is running a scam.
Shared for learning only from the named official source. Programs change — check the source before you apply. Applying is always free.
For lessons and learning, visit Minister Destiny Testimony Schools.