Have you ever tried to teach a child, tween, or teenager to keep track of their own important cards, documents, and pocket money? What about while trying to travel? The vast majority of busy parents have simply accepted that they have to hold onto everyone’s passports and boarding passes because otherwise, vital pieces of paper will be lost at the most inopportune moments possible. From sticky jam-covered fingers to dropping things without mentioning it, sometimes you wish you could just strap a packet of information, cards, and paperwork to your children in a way that is sure to be there when you look back.
In fact, this is entirely possible with the help of a few travel accessories. Satchels, strap-on bags, and money belts are all a great place to start with teaching your kids to keep track of their own things but the most important asset is the RFID travel wallet. Children have IDs, cards, documents, and even sometimes money that you’d like them to have on-hand and a wallet that can neither be dropped or spilled is the ideal solution.
1) Room for Everything
The first reason to get your child a RFID travel wallet rather than a small practice wallet is that there will be room for everything wallet-sized with their name on it. This is a great way to train your children for credit cards, drivers licenses, and insurance information. Ask your child to carry their school ID, library card, a copy of their insurance card, a copy of their social security card, and a bank card if they have one for an allowance savings account. Show them how to fold up larger or irregularly shaped things to fit in one of the money-sized pouches and how to store change in the zip-pouch. You may also want to write out a set of emergency phone numbers (in case of cell phone death) and a name and address set as you might for dog collar tags, just in case.
2) Hands-Free and Loss-Proof
The next great benefit of a RFID travel wallet for children is that they are usually built to hold on in one way or another. Some fit more reliably into a pocket, some have a sturdy loop for a belt and some come with a lanyard so as to be worn like a handy neck-wallet. Each of these configurations can make it easier for your child to keep track of their things and for you to be sure that the wallet hasn’t been dropped during family travels.
3) Wave-Pay Cards are Becoming More Popular
While a travel wallet may well start to sound like a pretty good idea, you might be wondering why the RFID aspect of the wallet is so important and, perhaps, why you keep seeing this issue pop up. The RFID travel wallet is made to protect the information of people who carry wave-pay credit, debit, and membership cards. These cards each have a small wifi signal and transmit their information (like a pay card swipe) all the time.
How it’s supposed to work is that you can simply wave your card at a wifi enabled wave-page reader and it will take care of a transaction but there are also scams to charge wave-pay customers multiple times, substitute one customer’s card for another, and for hackers to scan your cards from a distance. As wave-pay becomes more popular here in the states, you’ll want your children’s wallets protected ahead of time.
4) Teaching Responsibility
Finally, if your child is ready to carry one or more of their personal cards, they are ready to learn about the responsibility of wallet ownership. A wallet is something that almost every adult has and it is one of the three or four things that you absolutely don’t want lose along with your phone, shoes, keys, and eyeglasses. You may also teach them to carry a house key just in case, tucked into the wallet or looped through a zipper-pull for quick house-unlocking action.
Whether your child is seven or seventeen, if they haven’t started carrying a wallet yet, it’s never too early to practice and it may be exactly the right time to teach responsibility and organization. You might even consider setting up a special reward system for keeping track of the wallet, it’s contents, and the other small vital items.
