The scoop on GPS & parents debate
So often these days we turn to technology with the expectation that it can solve our problems. When it comes to child safety, we don’t live in a vacuum. I’d swap all the expensive GPS & remote- activated alarms (not to mention thoughts of microchipping…) for another parent who will reassure my child & wait with them until I get there. What we need is a return to trust in our communities.
Well, that’s what I think. What about the rest of you?
I found just this very question posted on the popular cafemom.com
You can read it for yourself or you can read my summary:
GPS is one of those issues that really polarises parents
On the one hand we have the YES, potentially group
“Yes, depending on where we were going and if it wasn’t so expensive, if it was smaller but I’m not daft, a pedophile would take it off”
On the other hand, there are the “No I wouldn’t use one” group …
- No, if I’m smart enough to put one on my child then an abductor is smart enough to remove it
- And the “are you crazy? what happened to childhood?!” people
I think as parents we need to teach our kids how to handle life not how to push a button for rescue. I think kids are too codependent in this day and age on outside sources as a replacement for common sense and parent rely on all of this too as a replacement for teaching. Sorry, I know some people think it’s great to chip kids and know where they are at all times but really it is making them unable to grow up and appreciate freedom and all of its rewards and responsibilities.
It also seems that GPS is equated in people’s minds with pedophiles.
Then there’s the mum who posts that simple thought from the heart – “yes but what if they’re just lost?“
Ah-ha, yes … there we really have the key issue. Children get lost. We automatically think of the worst case scenario so we look for a solution for this worst case scenario. Rationally it’s unnecessary.
GPS? It is a locator device. A car locator device, a child locator device. It is not a ‘child-bringer-backer device’ or a ‘reassure-your-child-mummy’s-coming!!’ device. Those I’m afraid only come in human form, until they invent Umberto the Uniting Robot.
