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Should parents use a GPS tracking device to monitor their children?

Should parents use GPS tracking to monitor their children?


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MyOwnDrum

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'Little Buddy' GPS device keeps tabs on your kid :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Technology

Should parents use a device like this to keep track of and monitor their children?

Best Buy is selling a transmitting device that lets parents keep track of their children. Parents can place the device in a child's backpack or lunch box, for example.

The "Little Buddy Child Tracker" retails for $100 (far less than other devices that sell for $200 to $500). It combines global satellite positioning and cellular technology to signal the child's whereabouts to a computer or smartphone.

Parents can program the device to set up specific times and locations where the child is supposed to be -- in school or at home, for example -- and the device sends a text message if the child leaves the site in that time.

The device immediately drew angry writeups from some techies, who called it a reason for children to run away from home.
 
Uh...The Simpsons episode did make a point. Perhaps many younger children aren't rational moral agents, but I suspect that the involuntary attachment of tracking technology to some of them will impede their development into fully capable moral agents. The comments are revealing enough...

Yes, with the number of children that go missing each year, every parent should use a personal GPS tracking device, but you dont have to be a parent to need or benefit from owning one of these devices. Motorcycles, skis, musical instruments, laptop computers, purses & luggage, even the family dog: EVERYBODY has SOMETHING they want to protect!!!

People are only equivalent to property in some stilted authoritarian delusion. :shrug:
 
No. What a ridiculous invasion of their kid's privacy. Parents can be so overprotective.
 
As long as it is not a implant it should be up the parent whether or not the parent wants to stick a GPS device in Little's Timmy's backpack or lunch box.
 
I feel that the media has seriously turned the public into a bunch of spineless paranoids with their fearmongering overhyped reporting.
 
No. What a ridiculous invasion of their kid's privacy. Parents can be so overprotective.
children are kidnapped and killed every day. if my children were very young i might use one of these devices. NOT for teens, however.
 
I feel that the media has seriously turned the public into a bunch of spineless paranoids with their fearmongering overhyped reporting.
how do you equate protecting young children to being spineless?
 
how do you equate protecting young children to being spineless?

My suggestion is that the Helicopter Parent phenomenon is a growing one in our society, and is being fed by a constant media feeding frenzy. I think it's stunting our young people to not be allowed to grow up experiencing a freedom to both explore their neighborhoods and physical environments, and to experience some of the natural consequences of their mistakes. We therefore have had a whole generation of young people unfit for responsible adulthood until they are in their 30s or 40s.
 
You can usually identify an authoritarian position by its supporters. :cool:

How does saying as long as it is not a implant it should be up to the parents make one an authoritarian?
 
How does saying as long as it is not a implant it should be up to the parents make one an authoritarian?

Parental influence can constitute an authoritarian force just as employer or church influence can. Much of it is of of course justifiable authoritarianism, particularly with very young children. However, permitting the indiscriminate and involuntary attachment of tracking devices on people is likely to result in injustice.
 
My suggestion is that the Helicopter Parent phenomenon is a growing one in our society, and is being fed by a constant media feeding frenzy. I think it's stunting our young people to not be allowed to grow up experiencing a freedom to both explore their neighborhoods and physical environments, and to experience some of the natural consequences of their mistakes. We therefore have had a whole generation of young people unfit for responsible adulthood until they are in their 30s or 40s.
their neighborhoods and physical environments are not as safe as they once were. i agree we've become over protective, but i see no problems with tracking young children. in fact, that could allow for more exploration.
 
their neighborhoods and physical environments are not as safe as they once were.

That sentiment is common enough, but can you refer to any empirical data that indicates that there's been a legitimately substantial increase in the dangers that children and youth face in the past generation, as opposed to mere perceptions of it fostered by the likes of John Walsh and Chris Hansen?
 
It's up to the parent, but I find the use of it to be rather disturbing. People freak out all the time about **** and the overprotection of kids could have negative side effects. There aren't anymore latchkey kids. The time of "Hey mom, I'm going to ride my bike with my friends" "OK, be back for dinner though" seems to be over. I don't think we're necessarily that much more vulnerable or at more risk; it's that people are freaking out a bit too much. Guess fear sells though.
 
Parental influence can constitute an authoritarian force just as employer or church influence can. Much of it is of of course justifiable authoritarianism, particularly with very young children. However, permitting the indiscriminate and involuntary attachment of tracking devices on people is likely to result in injustice.

A tracking device in Little timmy's lunch box or back pack is not permanent and would probably be a waste of money if Chester the Child molester is smart enough to toss Little Timmy's back pack or lunch box out the window.
 
A tracking device in Little timmy's lunch box or back pack is not permanent and would probably be a waste of money if Chester the Child molester is smart enough to toss Little Timmy's back pack or lunch box out the window.

Of a nation of 300 million+, approximately one to two hundred children are kidnapped by strangers every year. I don't see any reason to affirm an excessive sovereignty over childrens' bodies of the persons most likely to kidnap/abuse/kill them.
 
That sentiment is common enough, but can you refer to any empirical data that indicates that there's been a legitimately substantial increase in the dangers that children and youth face in the past generation, as opposed to mere perceptions of it fostered by the likes of John Walsh and Chris Hansen?
not offhand i can't. maybe is is just a sentiment, but it seems to me gang shootings were much less common 20 years ago, as well as child murder.

even if that wasn't the case, why not know where your young children are?
 
It's up to the parent, but I find the use of it to be rather disturbing. People freak out all the time about **** and the overprotection of kids could have negative side effects. There aren't anymore latchkey kids. The time of "Hey mom, I'm going to ride my bike with my friends" "OK, be back for dinner though" seems to be over. I don't think we're necessarily that much more vulnerable or at more risk; it's that people are freaking out a bit too much. Guess fear sells though.

My son is latchkey, and goes riding his bike with his friends every night. I guess I live in Mayberry, though. I don't have a problem with this technology, juveniles don't have the same rights in our society as adults do, so it isn't an invasion of their rights. It's a choice for parents.
 
not offhand i can't. maybe is is just a sentiment, but it seems to me gang shootings were much less common 20 years ago, as well as child murder.

Anecdotal sentiments.

even if that wasn't the case, why not know where your young children are?

Well, if it's a matter of attachment against their will, it seems a fairly straightforward ethical violation, since the discomfort that they endure through the knowledge of being constantly electronically monitored is likely to exceed the comfort that their parents gain from spying. :shrug:
 
I'm not comfortable with this at all. I agree it's up to the parents if they want to use it or not. I don't think I'd use it, tho. I would definitely not like to be a kid in this day and age. The poor things have zero freedom anymore. Imagine growing up knowing that your parents have total and absolute control of everything you do and everywhere you go. :shock:

Besides, kids are not stupid. They'll just take the device out of their backpacks, or leave the backpack somewhere and go do their own thing. At least I hope so, for their sake.
 
not offhand i can't. maybe is is just a sentiment, but it seems to me gang shootings were much less common 20 years ago, as well as child murder.

Actually, while gang crime has recently started to increase again, it's still considerably below the peak years of 1993-1996.
 
My son is latchkey, and goes riding his bike with his friends every night. I guess I live in Mayberry, though. I don't have a problem with this technology, juveniles don't have the same rights in our society as adults do, so it isn't an invasion of their rights. It's a choice for parents.

Yeah, I said it was the parent's choice. I just don't like the tracking stuff a whole lot. I think it will end up opening doors best left closed.
 
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