Better parents, not better kids

I was amused by this “Lit­tle Buddy” device that Best Buy sells. It’s a GPS unit that your child is sup­posed to carry around so that you will always know where they are.

I can see this being a good thing for chil­dren of high pro­file peo­ple, where kid­nap­ping might be a pos­si­bil­ity. But nor­mal peo­ple? My advice is to com­mu­ni­cate with your child. Ide­ally you have a trust­ing rela­tion­ship with them — they tell you where they are and when they expect to return. A pay-as-you-go mobile phone would allow them to com­mu­ni­cate with you in a sit­u­a­tion where they need to make a new plan. And that would cost less than the $15 a month that the Insignia plan requires (if your agree­ment with your kid is that you will pay for those kinds of calls or texts only).

Finally, I admit that we are of course not per­fect par­ents. And also, some kids just make bad choices. I don’t think those kind of kids would read­ily carry around a “Lit­tle Buddy” in their pocket or back­pack. Chances are, they’d leave it at their friends house before they went off wher­ever it was they wanted to go.