Silicone bracelets have not worked well for us. DDs tend to break/lose them. We have successfully used military-style dogtags on a chain around the neck. I grew up Army and had to wear mine every day (still remember warming it on the radiator before putting it under my shirt
), so it was no stretch to have DDs wear them, too. They come in fun colors now, too. We put first and last names, plus cell phones, then used a sticker to put our resort info on the back. Both of my younger ones have communication issues, so it made us all feel better knowing all they had to do was show their ID to a CM.
As a CM who has dealt with lost parents, Will's narration of the scene is pretty typical and I would say that most families are reunited very quickly, but it is also much easier if we have a PHOTO of your child that you just took that morning so we can see his/her clothing or if your child can tell us what YOU were wearing. If we hear that Junior had on a yellow shirt, we're looking for a yellow shirt. When Junior shows up in a white shirt, that could have cost us time in finding him. The quickest, though, is a cell phone #. If we have that, all we have to do is call you, bam, you're back together.
To be honest, it is very easy for parents to get lost at
WDW, but it doesn't happen as often as many people might think and we are very good at getting everyone back where they need to be. I promise you, someone awesome will be calming your child and working as quickly as possible to find you with a well-tuned system.