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Would You Put a Tracking Device On Your Child?
Hugh Pickens writes "In 2007 businessman Russell Thornton lost his 3-year-old son at an amusement park. After a frantic 45-minute search, Thornton found the boy hiding in a play structure, but he was traumatized by the incident. It spurred him to build a device that would help other parents avoid that fate. Even though most statistics show that rates of violent crime against children have declined significantly over the last few decades, and that abductions are extremely rare, KJ Dell'Antonia writes that with the array of new gadgetry like Amber Alert and the Securus eZoom our children need never experience the fears that come with momentary separations, or the satisfaction of weathering them. 'You could argue that those of us who survived our childhoods of being occasionally lost, then found, are in the position of those who think car seats are overkill because they suffered no injury while bouncing around in the back of their uncle's pickup,' writes Dell'Antonia. 'Wouldn't a more powerful sense of security come from knowing your children were capable, and trusting in their ability to reach out for help at the moment when they realize they're not?'"
Phhhh...Knock-offs.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
You mean like, I don't know, a phone?
everything controversial can be made acceptable by saying it will protect the children. Well you know what? fuck the children, we dont need any more of them, and who cares if we lose a couple a year? thins out the population.
It's really simple. I expect my kid will actually want a phone. Leaving location services on is a condition of getting to keep the phone. If I ever check on him and find it is disabled, or is reporting him to be somewhere he is not, then he loses the phone.
I know the pronoun likely is attached to the nearest noun, but I can't tell if Russell Thornton was traumatized and therefore built the tracker, or if the child was traumatized. Really, from the structure of that sentence it really seems like it is Russell who was traumatized.
The risk isn't worth the lost of privacy. If we teach our kids it's ok to be tracked anytime and always, it won't be long until all the kids wear government mandated trackingdevices. Which they get to keep to wear when they grown into adults. So no. It's not worth it, the risk is so small, don't do it. Keep an eye on your kids, make sure your kids know when to kick, bite and scream, but don't go tracking them with hardware. It's stupid.
Right, and because they know about it - they can give their phone to a schoolmate who plans on going to school, while they head off to the local crack den.
You aren't describing a problem that technology can fix.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Or you could, you know, be a better parent and keep closer tabs on your little precious bundle of joy. Or just not have them if you can't handle the responsibility.
But I'm sure I'll be modded into oblivion by said parents.
I would have no issue whatsoever with putting a tracker on my child. For anyone under the age of 18, the parent is ultimately liable for their actions. If my kid gets in a car crash and it is their fault, I have to pay for it. If they break a store window for fun, I have to pay for it.
However, such a tool should not be a "why is my kid 5 minutes late?" type of tool. I would only use it in emergencies. For example, curfew is 11 pm and by 7am the next morning, they are still not home. Or my child walks home from school and usually gets home about 3pm, I call them multiple times and the school does not know where they are, I would use such a device. Also, I would love a feature that let me know when they left a certain radius or approached a certain area. Certain areas being the known criminal enterprise areas.
There is a difference between being "big brother" and using technology to enhance your parenting.
sudo make me a sandwich
When my son is 3 years old, he'll be on a leash at an amusement park. Seriously. They make harnesses just for this purpose.
Don't get me wrong - when he's older, I will not be a helicopter parent. But a three year old is just a baby that can run. Fast. And if he's anything like I was as a kid, I'm in for big trouble.
:wq
Right, and because they know about it - they can give their phone to a schoolmate who plans on going to school, while they head off to the local crack den.
You aren't describing a problem that technology can fix.
Exactly. But this is a problem that proper parenting can fix. My daughter is 13. I can track her phone. I also know her bank password and can see the transactions on her debit card. Nearly every weekend she goes to her BFF's house to "study", but the two of them really go hang out at the mall (according to both the phone and the bank transactions).
Here is what I have done about the situation: nothing. Lying and deceiving your parents is a normal part of growing up, and the point of spying on your kids is not to prevent them from being normal, but to protect them from real dangers. If you use your spying to keep your kid from occasionally skipping a class, then you will not be able to protect them from the crack dealers.
Trust you kids. Let them do stupid stuff, make mistakes, and grow up. Only intervene when they make the big mistakes.
I think you underestimate the number of parents who see that as a win-win situation.
Nearly every weekend she goes to her BFF's house to "study", but the two of them really go hang out at the mall (according to both the phone and the bank transactions). Here is what I have done about the situation: nothing. Lying and deceiving your parents is a normal part of growing up, and the point of spying on your kids is not to prevent them from being normal, but to protect them from real dangers.
Hm. Personally I would rather catch the child from lying and then have a chat about lying and why she feels she needs to lie to me in the first place. I mean, I wouldn't be angry about the occasional skipping of class or hanging out with friends, that's all normal stuff, but never confronting her lying is just gonna raise some serious issues later in her life. If you can solve the issue in a way that the child doesn't any longer feel the need to lie to you you're BOTH better off than before, plus you've just taught the kid a valuable lesson.
But still overall safety? I can't think it is any worse.
Yet, you rarely seem to see neighborhoods of kids, playing outside during the summer, skateboarding, kill the man with the ball in someones front yard...etc.
When I was a kid, especially in summer, I left the house early...and maybe came home for lunch (or ate at a friends house, we moved around who ate with where, everyone's mom and dad was everyone's mom and dad)...and didn't generally come home till dinner, and after dinner would run around till dark.
I heard the other day, about a lady who's kids were riding scooters in a neighborhood cul-de-sac, in front of their house, with fucking HELMETS on...the Mom got arrested because she was reported by neighbors (who had an ax to grind) that she had them out there unsupervised.
I mean..really? Not only was she actually there watching them....and got arrested even after explaining that...
Lord, is that the way it is today?
I guess my folks would have been picked up LONG ago by the law and me with child services for all I did unsupervised most days....sheesh.
When, exactly, did it become against the law for kids to be kids, and parents able (and willing) to let them?
No wonder all these little fuckwits seem so lost and dependent when you see them out finally on their own...(not everyone, but man, more than you saw in my day).
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I don't see a downside to GPS tracking your kids. We use GPS on our smart phones to find directions to places in our direct neighborhood.
Right! Because, as we all know, GPS will always be available, electronic devices never malfunction (especially in damp, dirty environments such as forests and amusement parks!), and batteries never lose their charge, so why would anyone these days waste time teaching their kids how to find their way using such archaic methods such as knowing which way is North and how the sun rises in the East and sets in the West?
It's ubiquitous. The whole "Children need to find out how to get unlost by themselves" is complete luddite garbage.
YEA, FUCKING LUDDITES! How dare they think that future generations will ever, ever be unable to access geolocation technology! Computers and machines will always be there to do our thinking for us!! GOOO TECHNOLOGICALLY-ASSISTED LAZINESS!!!!
Children are entering a future where this kind of technology is intrinsically linked to their development.
So, because of that, they shouldn't have to learn anything on their own?
Do you not realize how silly that sounds?
Keeping them inside of a tech-free bubble
Strawman - no one is suggesting that.
just because the parents never grew up with the same technology around them ("And they turned out fine!")
Better than 'fine,' actually - I can find my way out of a wet paper sack without being forced to rely on some device that may or may not be available and functioning. Judging from your statements here, I find it doubtful you'd be able to do the same.
I don't suppose you've ever considered the notion that complete reliance on technology is a self-inflicted handicap?
...is just as bad as brainwashing them into religion at an early age...
So, here you say, essentially, that people who want their kids to learn as opposed to having a machine do all the kids' thinking for them, are exactly the same as crazy-ass fundamentalists?
Man, and some folks think I've got a twisted word view... You take the cake.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Geez....
I was actually talking to my Mom the other day...laughing about when I was about 2-3yrs..I wandered off from her, and got lost in the dept store...and they had to call over the intercom for her to get me.
We "misplaced" one of our kids at a shopping centre when she was about that age. I thought she was with my wife, my wife thought she was with me. It was absolutely horrifying. Security fairly quickly had someone watching near each of the exits etc, but I found her very shortly after happily sitting in a little car ride (the type you put 20c in and it wobbles from side to side a bit) that she'd spotted on the way in.
While it was about the worst i've ever felt about anything (my heart still races when I think about it!), my fear and anxiety was completely irrational, and i'm not going to stick a tracking device on one of my kids just because i've got a vivid imagination about the horrible things that might happen. There's a much higher chance of something bad happening on the drive to and from the shop than in the shop, so clearly spending massive amounts of effort mitigating the latter risk is well and truly misplaced.
I can't believe things are that much more dangerous now, are there? I often wonder, instead of more 'craziees' out there...if it is just more sensationally reported due to needing to fill up 24/7 news?
I'm pretty sure it's the latter. I can't remember the last time a child was actually abducted in Australia... i'm sure it's happened once or twice fairly recently, but there have been way more kids killed in traffic accidents in the same time. The abductions, when they do happen, get far more widely reported though, we even hear about it when it happens in other countries. The one in the US where the child turned up dead in a recycling bin even made the news here.