It’s any parent’s worst nightmare, looking up and realizing your child has vanished.

Most likely, Johnny just wondered off to a neighbor’s house. Or perhaps he’s started his own game of hide-and-go-seek and hasn’t filled you in.

While it’s one thing to lose your child around the house, the situation can be much more traumatic when out in public where there are a lot of people.

But it’s something that happens to just about everyone. In fact, the Center to Prevent Lost Children says 90 percent of families will experience losing a child in a public place, and 20 percent will lose a child more than once.

More than 2,000 children in the United States go missing each day, according to the center. Statistics also indicate 70 percent of children get lost at least once in their lifetime.

If putting a shock collar on your kid or using a leash to keep track of your children isn’t your style (yes, it’s a joke), several products have hit the market that can assist parents in monitoring their kids’ whereabouts, including temporary tattoos parents can put on their child’s wrist with contact information, high-tech GPS devices that can monitor a child’s location and digital watches with high-decibel alarms.

Michele Welsh founded SafetyTat, which sells temporary tattoos to parents. The tattoos are applied to the child’s wrist and contain the cell phone number of the parent.

“It’s an added safeguard,” Welsh says. “It’s just that ‘just-in-case,’ should your child become separated.”

Welsh says the tattoos have been sold throughout Kansas communities, including Overland Park, Lansing and Coffeyville. They cost $20 for 24 tattoos.

For $170, parents can buy a tracking device that will notify you if your child wanders too far and then point you in the direction they went.

But statistics show only 9 percent of parents use some form of safe ID on their kids. Experts recommend only including information about yourself and not the child, when using an identification device on children.

While Lawrence Police Sgt. Bill Cory says anything will help, he says nothing’s better than being alert.

When heading out to an amusement park, sporting event or any other large gathering of people, Cory says it’s imperative parents are always aware where their kids are.

“Make sure that they’re right next to you the entire time,” says Cory, a parent himself.

Some public venues are even implementing safety measures to prevent children from going missing.

“We provide all of our guests with entry wristbands,” says Chris Ozimek, marketing director for the recently-opened Schlitterbahn Vacation Village in Kansas City, Kan. “We highly suggest that our guests write their cell number on the wristbands of smaller children so they are easily located if the child is separated from their party.”

If parents don’t have instant access to their phone, Ozimek says the water park’s security team sends a message over the radio to aid in the search for the parents or child.

Jordan Stewart, a Lawrence mom, says she tries to keep good track of her 2-year-old and other children under her care, by “always keeping eye contact and knowing where they’re at.”

Cory, of the police department, says missing child cases are rare in Lawrence, a community of approximately 90,000z people, 5,000 which are less than 5 years old and another 11,000 that are between 5 and 18.

And as a city that has relatively few events that draws in masses of people and their children, most missing child cases occur in people’s homes.

“You’ve just got to be able to keep an eye on your kids. I know they can be a handful,” says Cory, police spokesman.