321–330 of 809 posts
Smartwatches may be an overlooked answer to the kid phone conundrum. Watches have the communication and location tracking that parents demand without the distraction of phones.
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"This constant tracking of kids is unnecessary and dangerous" What are the dangers?
Jonathan Haidt explains it best: https://youtu.be/hVEhtix7yWU
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I can only guess you (and most of the other naysayers in this thread) don't have young children. My wife and I have been looking for something exactly like this for our 6yo. I lost him on a ski slope once over a year ago and I think he's still traumatized. He recently was afraid of going on a class trip because he was afraid of getting lost. This isn't for teenagers. It's for kids that are still attached to mama/papa…
> I remember many times as a kid having my parents call out on the PA system when I got lost in a department store. How many times can you lose a child before it stops being accidental? It's a department store not Disney Land.
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I can only guess you (and most of the other naysayers in this thread) don't have young children. My wife and I have been looking for something exactly like this for our 6yo. I lost him on a ski slope once over a year ago and I think he's still traumatized. He recently was afraid of going on a class trip because he was afraid of getting lost. This isn't for teenagers. It's for kids that are still attached to mama/papa…
I hope this question doesn't offend, but have you taught your son what to do when he gets lost? Explicitly teaching and practicing strategies like this can help a lot. I was always taught to 1) stay where you are, not try to walk around and 2) approach someone who works at the store and tell them you're lost, your name, and your parents name. I also memorized my address and home phone number. Obviously that doesn't w…
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I met a guy who didn't wear his seatbelt. He was a delivery driver and in a collision at 20mph. His head went through the windscreen and it scalped him from the eyes up. He had a scar all the way across from ear to ear. He couldn't shut his eyes for months. He wears his seatbelt now.
So? Obesity is a way worse toll on the human body than a scarred face, but we don't issue fines for people who enter McD's Other people have their own bodies and they do not belong to you
If I'm driving and a driver not wearing a seatbelt enters the road it does increase my chances of being in an accident because if something happens that makes them have to swerve sharply, such as a large animal leaping into the road in front of them, a seatbelt increases the chances they will be able to remain in control during that maneuver.
Ugh, I threw up a little in my mouth just from the headline. This constant tracking of kids is unnecessary and dangerous. Generations of kids survived without their parents needing to know their location at all times. And yes, I totally admit, some kids (very few actually depending on the locale) didn't survive. But we've traded this false sense of "safety" for kids that are so risk averse it is seriously negatively…
But it can be seen the other way. Tracking can give kids more freedom, because you can let them roam where they could get lost. For example, you can take them on vacation in a safe but unfamiliar place and let them do as they want. If they get lost, just use the tracker to find them. You don't even need to go for them immediately, you can let them try to figure it out by themselves and only go if it becomes really pr…
Is the fear of getting lost really what's responsible for kids having less freedom? It seems to me that the fear is inspired by the remnants of the stranger danger panic and the very real threat of cars everywhere. Watches don't really help alleviate any of those fears, nor replace the video games and other digital activities that would keep them in the house to begin with. Most of the rest of the world can't afford tracking, and yet their kids tend to have more freedom (though I doubt this correlation has any meaning).
I'm not a parent though so I'm genuinely asking out of ignorance.
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This is a bit of projection. I have a child younger than yours and I feel exactly like OP. I’m really sorry about your son’s experience. Getting lost can be terrifying for a kid. But being lost happens (eg I was lost in hunting woods at 8yo), and many commenters have shared their experiences. Being scared and eventually overcoming the fear is a quintessential growing experience. Obviously there are countless caveats…
Same. 15/10/8 kids here. These are bad. A sibling comment said “everyone is free to do what they want”. I agree with that, but that doesn’t make everything good. In general I’m struck at how many people’s sense or “right” leans so hard on what’s available for sale.
I'm mostly confused how it seems there's pretty significant evidence that helicopter parenting[0] has resulted in poor outcomes for kids[1] but then we act as if the reason it fails is because we aren't paying __enough__ attention.
I am sympathetic to parents wanting to protect their kids, but if the objective is to turn children into adults that are independent and self-sufficient, then a parent also needs to learn to trust their kids (at different levels of course. Clearly there's a balance).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent
[1] To be clear, this metastudy concludes that there is insufficient statistical power due to scale, the evidence is in the direction of causing harm and of course, there is reason to believe this is a reasonable outcome. It's worth noting the part that says
Overprotective parenting and anxiety: No studies found reduced anxiety following overprotective parenting
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I don’t buy that tracking kids is necessary or increases their safety. This seems to be an American phenomenon.
I grew up in europe, and I had two instances where I came close to being abducted as a kid. You are naive if you think parents are overreacting. once you become the statistic the statistic is meaningless to you
But these are personal preferences, I’m not imposing this on anybody.
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Its weird the types of sacrifices we expect kids to make with regards to survival. Like when a school shooting happens we wouldnt event consider banning assault rifles. Those kids dont survive. But if having a tracker on your kid marginally increases their chance for survival in the rarest of circumstances it’s totally out of the question to not have it.
Why should law-abiding citizens have to give up their right to defend themselves because criminals commit crimes?