So. One of my big things with J is making sure that somewhere on his person is something that can identify him. He won’t tell you his name, so something visible and readily available to whoever he encounters feels a must to me. He also has MedicAlert, but that doesn’t quickly give the person in front of him his name and pertinent information.

Last year, I got dog tags made for him through My Precious Kid and love them. They come with nifty little carbiners plus silencers, so I would stick them on J’s shoe and off he’d go. Unfortunately for me, this doesn’t work with most sneakers and we’re getting into a season where sandals aren’t entirely appropriate. I could stick the dog tags on his coat but he isn’t always wearing that. When he is out in public he does indeed have his shoes on the bulk of the time… so I went searching.

A few months ago I had ordered a Big Red Safety Box from the National Autism Association. It has some great stuff including a coupon to receive a Road ID. Don’t know what a Road ID is? Check them out at their website.* I was dubious at first. All I had to hold this thing onto J’s shoe was what seemed two flimsy pieces of velcro. The plate I had made was quite nice and I could jam pack information onto it. These guys, they knew what they were doing when they made this product. I am unsure if they knew the impact it could have on children like mine but it’s a wonderful little thing. Wary of how well it would hold, however, I stuck it on his sneaker and have been kind of standing back over the past weeks to see how it works.
I am pleased to report it works great! When he comes home from school I’ll snag a picture of how they fit onto the sneaker. I love that I could word what needed wording in a pleasant manner, alert people to the fact J is non-verbal and point them to immediately call me. He still has his dog tags, mind you, but this is a great addition to our safety items.
A completely dorky aside: I am loving being a crash test dummy to finding things that work to help these kids and our families. Using Mabel’s Labels has been a blast, using the dog tags and shoe tags has been amazing… Who knows what else I will find!
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*= in the interest of full disclosure my link to Road ID is an invite link – any who make orders from it will help earn credits towards future IDs J may need. If you aren’t comfortable with that, it’s cool, just go to http://www.RoadID.com and purchase via their site without any affiliations. It’s all good. 🙂