Spark

Family GPS Tracking: Necessity or Dependence?

In today’s world, we’re all concerned about personal safety. We want to keep ourselves and our loved ones as protected as possible, in every situation.

Modern technology makes it easier than ever to keep in contact at all times, via text messaging, phone calls, video chat, social media, instant messages, and more. However, parents may not always feel as if they can depend on their children to check in and let them know where they are.

While many of us want our children to become independent, confident, and able to face the world head-on, the desire to keep them safe at all times can be overwhelming. GPS tracking is one solution gaining greater and greater traction, but is using this to track family-members a necessity or an unhealthy desire for control?

A Modern Luxury

Family GPS tracking technology is available in various forms, particularly for children below the age of 12 or those who are unlikely to own their own smartphones. Most of these tend to be packaged as wearable tech, such as bracelets, watches, and other products able to be fitted to a child’s clothing. Anything lightweight is usually critical, to minimize frustration and avoid inconveniencing the wearer.

The majority of GPS trackers are lightweight, compact, and made of rubber or plastic. SIM cards, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi functionality is usually key, to enable the GPS tracking to remain active at all times. Parents can monitor their child’s activity using a specific app installed on their own devices.

PocketFinder is just one example of wearable tech, styled as a simple keychain-sized piece. Despite its superficial plainness, however, PocketFinder boasts such powerful features as geo-fencing, low battery alerts, S.O.S. signals, speed alerts, and more.

Another child-friendly GPS tracking device is GizmoGadget, a smartwatch able to send messages and handle two-way communications. The in-built fitness tracker can keep parents informed of how active their child is at a glance, while dokiWatch is a similar product – only with a camera for video calls.

As you can see, there is no real shortage of companies working hard to meet the rising demand from concerned parents. These, and similar, devices can all be used for numerous occasions, monitoring children as they head out to the mall with friends, go to school, embark on a field trip, or simply play in the neighborhood with local children.

Beyond this, parents may also choose to use GPS tracking on their cars. Certain GPS devices and on-board computers enable car-owners to monitor statistics about usage by other drivers, such as fuel consumed and routes taken.

Parents can also set-up alerts to let them know when their teen drives outside an allocated route, exceeds a speed limit, or crosses beyond a specific pre-set boundary. Alerts may also be sent if said devices are disconnected or tampered with.

Is there any harm in this? Everyone has their own perspective, of course, but parents have always worried about their children being out of their sight – it’s only today that fears are exacerbated by such threats as terrorism, kidnappings, sexual assault, increased traffic on roads, and other frightening situations the media bombards us with on a daily basis.

Privacy Concerns and Independence

It’s perfectly understandable for a parent to want to know where their child is at all times, particularly those who may be naive or unaware of certain risks in their area. As many of these wearable trackers are designed to be as unobtrusive as possible, children are unlikely to put up much protest.

However, teens may well resent their parents trying to make them wear a GPS tracker or stick to strict limits and guidelines on in-car devices. Privacy is one shared concern teens may have about their parents wanting to monitor their activities, especially as they start to enjoy more independence; even if they have nothing to hide, they may still wish to visit friends, go shopping, and explore without the fear of getting phone calls from worried parents demanding to know why they crossed a geographical boundary.

In such cases, parents need to respect their children’s wishes and rights to privacy. However, it’s important to reach a comfortable middle-ground between parental concern and the child’s longing to do as they please. GPS tracking technology is an incredibly powerful, convenient luxury that offers real peace of mind for parents, but it must be used responsibly.

There is also the matter of children with special needs, who may be unable to exercise the same level of caution and spot potential threats as accurately as others. In such circumstances, GPS tracking is a much more understandable matter, though they are less likely to spend as much time unsupervised. Angelsense is one product aimed at parents with special needs children, boasting a listen-in feature that allows parents to monitor their child’s surroundings.

This function, though, saw an autistic child’s monitoring device banned from a kindergarten school due to privacy concerns. Angelsense built on this issue, enabling users to disable the listen-in function on school grounds, based around pre-arranged schedules.

Small adaptations and innovations like these will continue to make GPS tracking devices and similar technology a more practical solution, minimizing any potential fears of intrusion and maximizing the benefits. Honest discussion and compromise are essential, to ensure parents and children agree on the benefits of GPS tracking. No matter what the device or its function, they provide real peace of mind for many parents – and that can be all too hard to come by today.

Cher

Next Start the New Year Saving for College #takesimplesteps »

Previous « 2018 American Girl of the Year is Out-Of-This-World

View Comments

Crissy Mitchell says:

January 4, 2018 at 9:17 AM

We tried almost every gps tracker on your list and the only one that really stood out for us and the one we stuck with is Angelsense. We love it. It has the most advanced features for kids with autism. I can't imagine our lives without it.