# Instance ID problem
**URL:** https://discussions.unity.com/t/instance-id-problem/475487
**Category:** Scripting
**Tags:** Scripting
**Created:** [May 5, 2012, 11:49am UTC](https://discussions.unity.com/t/instance-id-problem/475487 "2012-05-05T11:49:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@anon\_38083795](https://discussions.unity.com/u/anon_38083795)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2012, 11:49am UTC](https://discussions.unity.com/t/instance-id-problem/475487/1 "2012-05-05T11:49:42Z")
SOLVED
Dear Community,
I’ve got a GameObject with 2 empty child GameObjects. Im using the child GameObjects as triggers. I need to get the parent GOs InstanceID. Problem is, the same objects InstanceID is different depending on from where I read it out. So reading out the InstanceID from a script on the parent object gives me a different InstanceID the the one I get by reading it out from a script on the child object. Strangely, the returned InstanceIDs always differs by 2.
Example - Script on the parent object
> [@](#):
>
> gameObject.GetInstanceID()
returns e.g. -31200
Example - Script on the child object
> [@](#):
>
> transform.parent.GetInstanceID()
returns e.g. -31202
Do you know why it behaves like this? Did I do any mistake?
The ugly workaround would to do a +2 to get to the same ID but I’d prefer a real solution.
Thanks for your help
Example - Script on the child Object needs
> [@](#):
>
> transform.parent.gameObject.GetInstanceID();
---
### Author:  [@gilley033](https://discussions.unity.com/u/gilley033)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2014, 10:00pm UTC](https://discussions.unity.com/t/instance-id-problem/475487/2 "2014-01-27T22:00:00Z")
This is old, and you have solved it, but I see you never explained how you solved it.
In case anyone else is wondering, the problem is that
```auto
transform.parent
```
refers to the transform of the parent rather than the game object.
You need to use
`transform.parent.gameObject.GetInstanceID();`
to get the instance id of the parent game object.