ICE - In Case of Emergency

While cell phones are a great tools to keep us and our families safe, there are a few precautions to take into consideration. Parent Hack's suggestions about safety measures to be considered when it comes to cell phones:

• Make sure your child's cell phone has the parents' numbers programmed in it, and label them Mom and Dad.


• Make sure your cell phone message lets people know who to contact in an emergency if you don't pick up. For example, my message says: "If this is a call about Alex or Zoe, please call Jake at XXX-YYY-ZZZZ."

Personally, I'm conflicted by the latter suggestion. I like vague answering machine messages because I don't like giving away too much information about myself or my family. That said, what about an emergency? Perhaps something to revisit.

As for the first issue, a few commenters suggested entering special code names that paramedics and other emergency professionals recognize. For Example, ICE, ICE Mom, or ICE Mary Mom, where ICE stands for In Case of Emergency. I've been doing this for a while, but if you lock (i.e., password protect) your phone for safety purposes, will an emergency professional be able to access any of your numbers? We gave up and went low-tech with a label maker...ICE (XXX) XXX-XXXX.

We hope we never, ever need it.