Try this GPS device: Good parenting skills
By Emily J. Minor
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Parents today are scared, and here’s how I know this.
The Sprint Family Locator plan. The Sprint Family Locator plan, introduced earlier this month and billed as the first wireless “location-based system,” basically attaches a global positioning device to your child’s cellular telephone so that you will know where he or she is at all times … No. But I do wish we trusted ourselves — our decisions, our victories, our mistakes. Then maybe we could trust our children. Just a little>
Well, Emily, I wish the world were a little more perfect too. But it isn’t, and I really think that throwing stones at parents who do what they can to try to protect their children is just a little off the mark. My own parents, more than 40 years ago when I was a teen, followed all the rules. They set limits, told me what they expected of me, and trusted me to hold up my end of the bargain.
Well, without going into much detail, I didn’t. I let them down a number of times, and the only reason I’m here today is because the Lord had a plan for me …certainly not because of the way I drove … I should long ago be dead, by the rules.
Maybe, Emily, you were the exception. I don’t know. I do know that I was far from unique amongst my “Happy Days” era friends. Actually, I was considered very conservative by some … I wouldn’t drive more than 120 or so, nor after more than 6 or 8 beers … if I had been counting. Many did far worse.
My own teens were good kids, and properly parented. Did they exceed the guidelines? You bet they did, and probably by a lot more than what I know about today. The bottom line is teens will be teens. Size 16 brains and size 38 balls. It has been that way since time began and isn’t liable to change in the future. Auto accidents are the number one cause of teen deaths.
You can trust blindly, or you can trust but verify as “the great communicator” once advised us. If I raise any more children, the route I’ll follow is already decided. They will be GPS Tracked. With a cell phone, with a black box on their car, or with their shoes … the method doesn’t matter.
They are your children folks … the duty to keep them safe over-rides all the poppycock about their “privacy” and development of their psyches. Their psyches can’t develop any further if their car is wrapped around a pole.