Should You Track Your Kids via GPS?

I’ve seen ads on TV for this, or something like it. Mr. Nonymous and I mock those ads relentlessly. “Fear-mongering” is right!

I might put it on a wayward teenager that couldn’t be trusted. 😀

I do have to say, though, that while I wouldn’t use it myself, I would rather see a parent use it to feel more comfortable about letting their child loose than to see a parent lock their child up in the house. It’s the lesser of 2 evils, imo.

(I say that as a young adult who was often locked up in the house as a child. Not because my parents didn’t trust me, but because my ER nurse mother didn’t trust the world.)

I can see the good side – particularly if you do let your kids roam. In fact, my (35 year old) sister has plans to do a pilgrimage through the mountains in Spain and we’re not letting her go without the adult version of the Little Buddy (I forget what it’s called but it’s at REI) because while we understand her need to commune with nature – it makes us all feel better to know that if she hits a single button, rescue squads will know exactly where she is and be able to swoop in before she bleeds out. I’ve considered getting it for my husband who regularly cycles in the mountains here.

But I agree with Shannon – at what point do you *stop* monitoring?

Of course, my question would be, who else has access to the information about where my child is every minute? Since this is obviously going through an e-mail alert system of some kind…(a different brand of paranoia there…)

I tried to explain to my 62 yo mother, why several children at a perfectly safe wading pool , with only one GATED way in or out with several lstaff stationed just outside of Boston, were wearing “baby Lo-jack’s” this summer. My mom was a cautious parent, especially after a girl we knew actually was kidnapped & killed by a stranger, but even she broke down in hysterical laughter when confronted with these devices.

The only rationale I can support is if you have a severely developmentally delayed or maybe a mute/ autistic child who is unable to communicate verbally if they were separated from you.

My mom also couldn’t understand why so many parents were in the wading pool shadowing their kids. (Not babies, but 5-7 yos) I couldn’t explain that one.

Of course, pentamom, it goes in reverse – some are so blase about injuries that they disregard what most of us would worry about because they know (or at least “know”) it’s probably nothing.

Which is why doctors shouldn’t heal their own kids.

Sky, if your kid is deliberately going where she’s not supposed to, she probably is smart enough to pass her GPS bracelet to a friend who is going where she IS supposed to. I envision a poor kid loaded down with bracelets from all her friends while her friends cut school that day.

i’ve never even considered one of those things … just another battery eater in my view. however, we have a cell phone that the kids often take on their wanderings around the block so i don’t have to scream myself hoarse when it’s time for dinner. i’ve thought about activating the GPS option on it so that i could just go directly to them, but i’ve resisted this urge … note that i want it for my convenience, not because i’m afraid someone will kidnap them.

the other thing that stops me … the knowledge that my kids lose anything that’s not irreparably attached to their bodies.

Uly, you are right.

I like the idea, but mainly so I can harass my children…. “Now why did it take 10 minutes for you to cross the park area? You weren’t playing were you? Who do you think you are?”

It’d be great fun…

How is this supposed to keep kids safer? Like so many other things, it can’t PREVENT any harm, just tell you where it’s happening. And that’s only IF the kid carries the thing – it looks like it has to go in a pocket or backpack, and my kids frequently have neither. I guess you could duct-tape it to them. 😉

I think this is more of a fear-marketing issue than a free-range issue. I don’t think electronically knowing where kids are limits their freedom – they can still go wherever they want. I do think it’s unnecessary and could send the message of not trusting them to actually be where they say they’re going.

OK, you love your spouse, right? OK, give them this device! Oh wait, they don’t like it? It represents distrust? It is Big Brother? Oh, now I understand.

In regards to efficacy, does anyone really think any kidnapper worth a hoot would not get rid of the device right after the kidnapping?

In regards to the psychological effects of carrying this around, unlike a cell phone which is a means for people to communicate, this is a passive tracker as if your child is a migrating tuna. This directly teaches kids a lesson in safety at all costs, something that would no doubt lead to either their outright rebellion or voting for politicians who will offer safety and no risk. You figure it out.

Well I as a high school child lied to my parents all the time about where I was going. The only thing was I was very responsible. Now you might think well at that age a child’s trust in themselves is not to be trusted. Well honestly I did not drink in high school or do any drugs, I was also a virgin and was not at all planning to not be a virgin during my HS time, not because of religious reasons, but because I was definitely not in love and not wanting to be in love or be serious with a boy, and I knew I was not ready to have sex for sex sake. So why did I lie then? Well I thought my curfew was too early, I also thought my parents were too conservative with not letting me go out in a group that had boys in it and also my parents were a bit prejudice and did not want me to go out with certain of my friends that were boys and african american and pick them up in their neighborhood(I grew up in Miami) which was a low income “ghetto” type neighborhood. So I lied all the time about where I was going and who I was going with. But I can tell you know, I did not drink, I did not have sex or fool around at all barely beyond making out and still barely at all, me going out was with literally a group of friends, boys and girls like myself, creative artsy types who was very ethnically diverse although not really socially diverse, we pretty much were all the same types of people.

So that GPS tracking device would have tortured me, and I think uneccessarily so.

We need traffic controllers for all of these parents trying to stalk their own children. Geez, when you have too many helicopters flying in the same path, they have a possibility of crashing. You like my analogy of helicopter parents. Anyway, what happened to a thing such as a “carefree childhood”. Letting them enjoy themselves while they are young!!!

This all gives me a great big headache.

I can see the use for it, in certain situations. Some kids are a bit more adventurous than others, and *want* to go explore that creepy looking part of the woods. There’s also the potential for adventure in big, crowded, unfamiliar public areas (I’m thinking the Washington Mall/Smithsonian in DC, which is almost always packed with adults AND kids). Of course, for these kids, I’d imagine that they’ve already been given some kind of guidance (ie, “you can explore the woods by yourself, but make sure you’re back home by whatever time”) as well as basic safety guidelines — like if you’re lost and scared, find a museum employee or an adult with any school group, because they can help you. It can also be very helpful for parents of special needs children who tend to wander away. Of course, it could be useful for the more…”adventurous” teenagers, but they probably wouldn’t wear it (which would defeat the purpose of using a GPS system).

I think something like a GPS bracelet can be used to supplement free-ranging, rather than to watch a child’s every breath. Especially with younger kids (between five and seven — old enough for school but not quite as independent yet), who might be hesitant to just go off alone, but feel a bit bolder knowing that this bracelet will help Mom find them if they get lost. It just depends on how and when it’s used.

And then we can chip them like our pets too!

I think if I used it at all I would ask my teen if they wanted to have it on them. If it would give THEM piece of mind.

This would be good for alzheimer’s patients though.

Bad idea for three reasons – you are shifting your parental responsibility to a gadget. Your child is gone, and when the police come you tell them “but the GPS told me they were in the park for those three hours!” while for those three hours the GPS was buried in the sand or stuck on a branch in the tree; if your child is old enough to wander on his/her own, he/she is old enough to follow the rules that come with the freedom he/she is given, be it check in every 1/2 hour, come home when the streetlights are on, or don’t wander past landmarks A B and C. Finally, the potential for a government mandate just scares me. I can see it now “your child’s GPS shows he was in the car while you CLEARLY were walking to the preschool and were NOT in the car….”

So when do we break off the umbilical cord?

If they’re mature enough to go some places by themselves, I assume they would know how to use a cell phone by that point in time, so what’s the point of a tracker?

Personally, I doubt I’d spend $100 bucks on something like this arbitrarily, although I can say I’d use it if one were given to me. Not because I’m petrified of my child being taken every second of every day and ohmigodpedophilesareeverywhere, but because at only a year old my child is already very headstrong, and later on it would be nice to know where he’s wandered off to (cuz I know it’s gonna happen). My dad put a couple of little christmas bells on my shoes after I scared the crap out of my mom by running off and hiding in Fred Meyer’s once…I called them my jingle-feet, and as far as I can tell I wasn’t emotionally scarred by it.

So, I guess, bottom line is that using this to try to stem the tide of pedo-phobia is probably pretty useless, but for tracking down wayward kids, yeah, I’d use it.

“Now you can frenetically mash your F5 key on your keyboard to watch your child get on with their life while you should be getting on with yours.” Whereas previously all I could do (to avoid getting on with mine) was hang out reading comments on FRK ;)!

@Emily there was an interesting report on NPR (All Things Considered) last Friday (at least in my area) about how these kinds of devices (used by adults, as you describe) are actually creating problems/dangers because people who have them go into more dangerous situations than they otherwise would — figuring that if they need rescuing, it’s available. As the interviewee (someone who coordinates wilderness rescues) described, even with such a contraption, that’s not necessarily true — rescuers cannot necessarily reach people, and even if they can (i.e. conditions aren’t so bad/dangerous as to prevent travel), it still takes them time to get there (that’s why we call it wilderness). Not to say that I’m opposed to adults heading into the wilderness using such devices, just that it may be worth talking about this issue with your sister before she goes.

I understand the obvious concern over paranoid parents using this as a way to reinforce fear in their poor kids, but is there ANY way this could be used to enhance free range parenting? I’m going to consider this option if I think it can be a basic level of safety that doesn’t interfere with free range goals

My 2 boys are ages 4 and 2, and I’m looking forward to letting them roam the neighborhood as they attain maturity in the next few years. As a free range parent, if I approach using the GPS device properly when they are 6-10 year old, is there a way to make it work? After age 10 or so they will have a cell phone that takes it’s place, like everyone else has. We agree that free range kids can have cell phones if used properly, right?

We agree that it’s okay to force free range kids to use simple hassle free safety devices like bike helmets and car seats. For a free range family, a GPS monitor could be a simple hassle free device that gives a basic level of safety.

I’m not too concerned about myself becoming paranoid and constantly checking in on them. For me it’s a basic layer of safety in that extremely rare case they get lost for an extended period or are abducted. At the very least it will give police a baseline of where to start looking. It’s not much different from my perspective then giving them a bike helmet in the rare case they get hit by a car.

My biggest concern then is my kid’s free range development being stifled because they know they are constantly being monitored, and are desensitized to the feeling. They won’t ever get to experience the thrill of getting lost and finding your way back. But again, don’t many free range parents already encourage cell phones, if used properly? Don’t we encourage community involvement to constantly monitor each other’s kids for safety? When I was a free range kid in the 80s, I knew that the stay at home moms scattered throughout the neighborhood were monitoring me, and would call my mom at home if something happened to me while I was on their block.

I’ll monitor this debate closely from the free range perspective. I know that the paranoid anti-free range crowd will be all over using this, but there should be a separate debate for free range parents who want to use it properly and are conscious of the ramifications.

OK, serious help. Use the stuff about cars, use the stuff about how kids are most likely to be hurt/murdered/abducted by those they know. Following the line of thinking about concerns over other things all children should be removed from their homes and raised by robots or a different person every week and all cars should be outlawed.

For the same reason I don’t always have my cell phone on me when I go to stores or on walks – people aren’t robots or machines – we’re not meant to be on leashes or tracked or even be able to be reached at any given moment.

Taking a GPS device with you into the mountains – I don’t know. I enjoy going on my hikes knowing I don’t have a safety net – maybe that means if I fall I will never leave the mountain and might cry about my fate as I lay dying – but in truth – I enjoy knowing that it’s me and nature and that’s it… no one else. So, Self, don’t fall.

The problem I see more than anything else is that people are less able to differentiate between our capitalist nature attempting to sell you something you want and that same capitalist nature trying to sell you something by making a fear even bigger – making it a reality and thus, making their product a necessity.

I will never forget when one of my friends, who I considered a reasonably smart person, had her first child and Lysol had just started the commercials with those wonderfully CG germs on kids hands as they touch things. She started washing her hands so frantically, she chapped the skin til it bled. I never looked at her the same way again, sadly.

When we let companies that want to sell us something begin to tell us “facts” – we lose the ability to choose and we lose logic. This – GPSing our kids is beyond ignorant. We microchip our pets because they can’t speak when they get lost. Children don’t require microchips, nor should they require GPS for PARENTAL supervision. If you kids want a GPS for their own selves – great! Other than that… it’s ignorance.

I think it’s important for kids to do things outside of their parents’ direct control. Isn’t that part of growing up?

I agree that this device might be appropriate for kids with developmental disabilities–i.e., kids who may never be able to be fully self-sufficient–but NOT for children who we would like to be able to take care of themselves one day.

Uly, I love your point about any intelligent kid who wanted to fool Mom just ditching the GPS. That’s certainly what I would have done. Heck, her ability to see a little dot on a screen that she was sure was me would just keep her from calling!

And Alexicographer, I like your reference to the NPR story about kids equipped with GPS going into dangerous situations more often with an illusion of greater safety. There’s a playground in St. Louis called Monstro. It’s made out of welded iron rebar, World War II planes and tons of rusty junk. It goes fifty feet in the air, and is full of dangerous-looking stuff. The ball crawl is probably five feet deep. Children play on the thing all day. To my surprise, when I asked the museum how many kids had gotten hurt on it, they said zero–ever! Nobody’s ever even fallen. I’m not sure that could be said about the super safety-pimped playground equipment down the block. Monstro looks dangerous, so kids are careful on it. They use common sense and caution, and they don’t go where they’re uncomfortable.

Let’s please put some trust in our kids and let them exercise their common sense.

Don’t you believe it. It’s nothing to do with kids being in constant danger, it’s all about conditioning the adults of tomorrow by monitoring them today.
I’m up for a new passport this month, and lo and behold; I have to give my fingerprints for a freaking passport!! Used to be that only criminals got their prints taken, but noooo…! Honorable citizins are all potential criminals, so we all have to give our prints. ‘For our own safety’ or course. Or so they say. They claim that a terrorist could fake his id so because of the potential danger of one imaginary criminal using a fake passport we must all give up a piece of our civil liberties. Of course this is bull because the EU was toying with this idea long before 9/11, but I digress.

Honestly, I grew up in a time where we all agreed that communist regimes such as in East Germany were evil, but we now willingly accept, yes even willingly apply them to our own children, things that the Stasi would’ve drooled over having. Things such as MICROCHIPPING human beings so they can be traced wherever they are. And why? Because of some imaginary fear.

Have we all gone mad?

Love the site, been reading a while. First comment though.

One thing that hasn’t come up is access: How to view the tracking. Let’s assume the data is account / password restricted. Most people tend to pick easy passwords, and hackers LOVE to break into systems. It’ll be pretty easy to access tracking data for whoever has the device.

So, the parents know where their kid is? So does everyone else who can guess their password.

@darklyndsea: ooh, I like that idea 🙂

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.

NO.

Not good, not “ok in some circumstances”, not helpful. This is one step away from chipping kids like people do to their dogs. YUCK.

You might feel differently if you had an autistic child, Katie.

My autistic daughter is what’s referred to as a “flight risk.” She loves nothing more than figuring a way out of our house and taking off at top speed to parts unknown. Fortunately we live in the country and the nearest busy street is miles away, but trying to find a fleeing child in the open country is no picnic. I have one on her for good reason (she’s also non-verbal.)

I don’t have one on my NT child — he’s free-range all the way.

@Jacqui, just to be clear, the NPR story was specifically about adults, not kids, taking extra/inappropriate risks. I’d guess the same basic issue would apply to kids, but it wasn’t addressed.

I could see one of these devices being useful for my dogs. Or my horse (in principle, not so much for our current situation).

And yes, to what darklyndsea said.

I have one of these. For my dog. My bear hunting dog. When my kid is old enough to go bear hunting, he will get one, too. FOR BEAR HUNTING.

Anything less dangerous than bear hunting, he is on his own. And once he gets old enough, he can have the OTHER unit – so he can find the truck instead of the truck finding him.

“Preparation is good. Paranoia is not. ”

Let’s make this a minivan bumper sticker, shall we?

**sighs**

About two years ago now I talked about this coming…the GPS tracking ability for our spawn. Do we **really** need this? Of course not. ONLY in the rare event that your kid is snatched and housed in a basement for the next 20 years.

IN THAT case, I would be all about “rah rah” for the GPS tracking ability; but let’s be real, the “odds” of that actually happening are what? Nearly nil, read the book readers, read the book.

We are FAR better off equipping our kids with the knowledge they need to not only thwart some bad person’s intentions (notice I did not use “man” here) as well as teaching them the tools they need to get out of any hairy situation.

We are microchipping our pets and that is fine and good; should we be doing the same for our kids? I am not so sure.

A cell phone carried by a child can also serve as a tracking device in an emergency. What more do people need? Humanity got along pretty well before the advent of all these gadgets, after all.

I think that devices can serve as a crutch. They also feed OCD tendencies in parents. There’s something psychologically going on here with all this over compensation.

I remember a few years back the schools instituted a website where parents could check daily on their kids homework and keep totally on top of everything that was happening day to day at school. I told them that on no uncertain terms would I be spending that much time obsessing over the minute details of their school careers. But for the OCD prone people out there, these types of things just feed their obsessions.

@April: Kristen said it. You’re missing the opportunity to make your child responsible for herself.

My children are expected to take a watch outside and come back on time or face consequences. I give them freedom based on the fact (yep – fact) that kidnapping is a very low probability they face. I teach them that by coming home to check in, they get more freedom – thus grooming them for the time when they become teens and figure out the way to stay out of trouble with mom is to continue doing the responsible thing by coming home at an agreed to time or else they have freedoms and rewards taken away.

GPS is nothing more than one step from chipping your kid. I mean, really, with the same logic – you could claim that you can let your kid go anywhere if she’s microchipped because she can never lose her chip! It’s not going to stop her from getting hit by a car. It’s not going to stop anyone from taking your child if you do happen to be on the wrong end of the tiny odds. If you can admit it’s only there to make **you** feel better – then perhaps you can begin to see why it’s an idea that could easily be expanded to make the rest of society feel better for one reason or another – and end up ripping the freedom we supposedly hold dear right out from under us.

Sean….totally LOL at the ‘migrating tuna’ comment. So right on! These devices have a purpose in given situations, but I agree that the passive surveilance isn’t something I want my kids to get used to. This kind of device seems like it could foster a false sense of security as well, for parents and children. It won’t be going on my shopping list anytime soon.

Ahhh, the joys of watching technology perverted to cause more problems than it solves.

This will be a great addition to those families that use technology inappropriately in every other aspect of their lives. Maybe they can package it with internet-filtering software at a reduced rate; the same parents who would buy this out of fear and an inability to teach their kids appropriate ways to communicate with adults need to avoid those painful conversations about appropriate computer use. This is just one more example of parents trying to modify the world to accommodate their child, instead of preparing their child to live in the world, and they’ll get exactly the kind of children they deserve because of it.

The really funny (read: sad) thing is that these fear based technologies are mostly ineffective. Want to track your rebellious teenager? They’ll just hitch a ride with friends instead, or disable their tracking device. Or if it’s portable, they’ll give it to a friend for the day. Ditto with the filtering software: they’ll simply use a friend’s computer, buy their own, or discretely disable your filters and logs.

What I want to know is why these parents even bother having kids in the first place. If you sacrifice all of the actual joys of having kids in favor of paranoia and suspicion, you’d be better off just buying a dog.

Dear Lord, it’s a wonder any of us that grew up in the 70’s is still alive.

If I got lost or was going to be late, I found a (rotary)phone and called home. The TRAGEDY!

I am so encouraged by hearing that there are other parents out there who don’t give their kids cell phones.

Of course, I don’t have one myself, so I am biased. But I really don’t see that a 3rd grader needs a phone. Especially my 3rd grader – he would lose it in 5 minutes.

This device gives a false assurance of safety. If something tragic though unlikely happens to your child all this does is locate the body. If the child is a way from home it doesn’t tell you anything is happening only where the child is. If the child is supposed to be on the play ground and something takes place there the parent is not alarmed at all because the child is where they are supposed to be. A false sense of security is not security at all.

I might have used this with my Autistic boy because he gets lost in the house, let alone outside. Not my other kids though.

One of the scary joys of childhood is being absent from the family. Being away. Being alone.
It’s the fear of being alone in one’s own head that sparks the desire for products like this ,and the constant cell phone use, and tvs in cars etc etc etc.

Personally I can’t think of a greater gift to my child than to let them be alone with themselves.

I don’t have TV (reception) so couldn’t watch the show. I’m glad there’s someone like Lenore out there countering all this mass hysteria.

Here’s the segment on FoxNews if anyone’s interested in watching it:

http://www.foxnews.com/search-results/m/27231514/little-buddy-debate.htm

I also found an article about the Little Buddy on Fox Nation. Some of the comments scare me.

http://www.thefoxnation.com/culture/2009/10/27/little-buddy-gps-keeps-tabs-your-kid

I have a feeling this product will do well. How sad is that. I agree, for kids with developmental issues or adults with issues, this could be a wonderful device. However, that is not the target market. Again, how sad is that.

I agree, it is a false sense of security. Like others said, it is easy enough for an older child to leave it where they are supposed to be, or to pass it to someone who is going where they are suppose to be. That’s what I would have done.

And for the younger crowd, if they are to stay in a playground and they put the device down. Then, they wander off and get lost. Device is of no help.

And if some one DID actually grab them, that person would toss the backpack and cell phone first thing. Again, device is of no help.

Then, there is the false alarms. What if they child has to detour while walking to school due to sidewalk construction. Do you get a message and freak out? What if they see their friend two blocks off and run across the field rather then staying on the approved path? How many false alarms will go in to the police?

And, then, what if a neighbor is abusing them? The neighbor offers to watch your child. They stay within said GPS parameters. They are abused. GPS tracking does nothing to save them.

My boys are 6 and 5. They do not have cell phones. Not sure they will before they are able to buy one for themselves. Glad to hear they are not the only ones.

I am teaching them good old fashion safety. How to get somewhere safe. What to do if you are lost. How to deal with people who make you uncomfortable, and how to listen to those red flags. Worked well for me.

Spot on about the false alarms. The more saturated the police and others get with false alarms, the more useless the system becomes. Everyone has gone through the electronic alarm at the store only to find that store personnel neglected to remove the security tag when they got home. I hear them go off all the time when I’m at Fred Meyer. My daughter told me that she was talking to her sister, who was walking out of the store with her purchases, while she was absentmindedly holding an item of security tagged clothing, and no one noticed while she waited outside the store with the ‘stolen goods’. She, herself, finally noticed what she had done and rush back into the store.

Police aren’t an infinite resource and would be better off spent patrolling around schools when they let out, and other places where children frequent.

Thanks for the link to the show. Matt Berman looks like he’s one hamburger away from a coronary event. My advise to him, if he so concerned about ‘safety’? Matt Berman needs to improve his diet, and start an exercise program. He should have a thorough work up done, including an A1C, fasting lipids, triglycerides, the works.

My prediction is that he will be needing a cardiac cath within the next 5-10 years, with an intervention, if he hasn’t already done so. Also, I suspect that his bubble wrapped offspring are already a little plump and will end up with type 2 diabetes with all that entails…

Wow you really have to see Lenore’s reaction to that story – she goes from smiling agreeably to pure shocked bewilderment in an instant!

First Lenore related the GPS tracker to treating our kids like delivery boxes. The Fox anchor responds with this story: “My 4 year old recently opened the door for the UPS driver, even though we tell him to never open the door for strangers! (Lenore smiles) We immediately had a family meeting (Lenore smiles and nods) I couldn’t believe it. He could have been gone in an instant, right Matt?” (Lenore cocks her head and gasps)

Simply amazing. You are a brave woman.

The only up-side I see to this is if it allows nervous parents to finally loosen up a bit. “Sure, Johnny, you can walk to school, as long as you carry your GPS.” It’s not logical and easily circumvented, but it might be reassuring (just like giving up your water bottle for the TSA). But the potential for false alarms is worrying.

There are some folks at my father-in-law’s old-age home who could use one of these, because they are physically capable of wandering around but no longer able to recall where they are, where they came from, or where they wanted to go with any consistency.

Similarly, it might be useful with certain categories of kids (the non-verbal “flight risk” mentioned by someone above, for example).

For everyone else, it’s stupid and pointless and a bad idea. Either you sneak it into your kid’s clothing or belongings, in which case they (a) lose it within a week or (b) find it and accuse you, with perfect justification, of not trusting them; or you give it to them openly, in which case any kid who’s up to something you might want to know about will figure out a way to ditch it within minutes.

Now, a rugged inexpensive active GPS device that could help kids figure out where they are, on the other hand … that I could get behind.

KW- You know, if you put one of those shock collars on a wandering kid they would learn to not leave the yard. (Oh, you do know that I am joking, I hope!)
Seriously, though, they do have portable alarms that you can put on the door to alert you if it opens.
My neighbor had a little girl that was a Houdini- used a forgotten ladder to scale a 6 foot board fence when she was 2 when her mom went inside to get a drink of water and answer the door – literally out of sight for less than 5 minutes in a fenced back yard, playing happily in a sand box. Jane came boiling out of her front door screaming “Angela!” just as a lady came down the street with Angela in hand- she was already a block away happliy waving at cars as they sped by.
Angela (now a grown lady with 2 girls of her own) was always a wild child. She backed her granny’s car down the driveway at 5 and crashed it into a tree the day after hurricane Hugo. Grandma left it there for the adjuster to see and the looky loos that came through our neighborhood looking at the damage from the store always slowed down and loooookkked at that car- wondering how the wind could have blown it into the pines. Her neighborhood nickname after that was Hurricane Angela.
No gps in the world would have helped curb her.

The device might help parents with such fears to let their kids be more freerange, but if they are so fearful of everything they buy this, that’s unlikely to happen to begin with.

I’m waiting for the first case of someone getting arrested because they happened to have helped a lost GPS-kid…

OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! Really?? Her poor 4-year old could have been snatched by the scary UPS man?? I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw the dumbfounded look on your face when she said that, Lenore. Rest assured that my own expression mirrored yours in that moment.

pentamom

“How long is it going to take people intent on doing harm to a child to figure out that the first thing they do is smash the thing or throw it away?”

My thoughts exactly…