While having a cell phone is a great measure for communicating with your child, you might want to explore some extra emergency contact methods.

Technology is great, and as you may know, even a dead cell phone is capable of dialing 911. While 911 is great for that life or death emergency, it is not always the immediate solution for common everyday mishaps. As you probably well know, even smaller scale scenarios could eventually lead to a larger 911 problem if left unresolved long enough.

As a safety precaution, many parents are finding themselves purchasing extra phone cards that can be used from any phone. In the event a cell phone is disabled either by a low battery or bad reception area a phone card is good extra insurance. If your teen drives a motor vehicle, the possibility of them roaming into uncharted territory is increased. Remember when you were a teenager, bet you do.

Most parents can easily order phone cards along with extra duplicates from their current phone service or long distance provider. It may pay though to do the extra research to find if there are less expensive alternatives out there being phone card rates can easily skyrocket beyond reasonable costs. However, the costs more than likely will always beat the rates of a collect call.

Another option not as many parents have chosen is having a toll free number that forwards to the home phone. While it doesn’t cost much, many are confused by the concept or feel it is too expensive.

Toll free numbers are actually really inexpensive and you only pay for calls received at home that were dialed with your toll free number. Toll free numbers can be dialed from any payphone with connect fees costing about 35 cents and only about 4 to 3 cents per minute. It really is an affordable option when you add it all up and your whole family can memorize it more easily than a toll free phone card number and PIN.

If thinking of using a toll free number be sure to look for a stand alone toll free service with either no or low monthly fees. Before doing that though, check with your current phone provider, you might find they can add it right to your local or long distance bill without ever having to shop around.