Track your child or trust your child?

Posted on March 14, 2014

Recently the Wall Street Journal published an article (complete with flow chart!) about child trackers and how to choose the right one for your child. Included are a backpack leash suitable for toddlers, a smartphone app for teenagers, and a two part device that alerts the parent if the child is more than 30 feet away. Not included, however, is any serious question of whether these devices are helpful in a long term sense. (There is a tongue in cheek reference to “old fashioned parenting”.)

Here at Tools of Growth, we believe that parents are managers AND leaders. Not only do we need to manage our children’s day to day lives (less so as they get older), we need to “lead them through their challenges” and “teach them the importance of good character and values”.

Does using a child tracker, whether electronic or physical, accomplish that? Every parent-child relationship is different and in some cases a child tracker may be useful (perhaps a trip to Disneyland with a young child or the first week a teenager has his driver’s license). But trust—real trust, the kind that doesn’t need to be measured by a smartphone app—is worth so much more than the momentary peace of knowing exactly where your child is because you have put a chirping watch on them. If you were in your child’s place, would you be more likely to stay within the confines of the tracker or try to evade it?

In other relationships, trust given tends to become trust deserved. Of course, age-appropriate limits must be set and consequences for breaking the trust must be clear. But in the wise words of Dr. Laura Markham, “Trust means not giving up on your child, no matter what he or she does. Trust means never walking away from the relationship in frustration, because you trust that she needs you and that you will find a way to work things out.”

What do you think? What situations would you use a tracker in? Do you think it’s a good long term solution or only a temporary fix? Tell us on Facebook and Twitter.