The Latest Tech To Keep Tabs on Your Kids

[Gagundathar]

http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/audio/articles/152146/article.html

For many parents, handing over the car keys to an inexperienced teenage driver is a modern-day rite of passage akin to the ancient practice of sending a kid out into the wilderness to face a whole new world of dangers for the first time. When a teen drives out of sight, parents can only wait, wonder and worry until they return home.

But thanks to technology, moms and dads can now electronically ride shotgun with their teens by tracking their whereabouts in real-time, monitoring their behind-the-wheel behavior with a video camera, recording whether they're driving too fast or in a forbidden area and even limiting how loud they can crank the stereo.

This came to mind in light of the school admin webcam spying and general parental spying in other threads.

I heard an ad for this service on my morning commute today and I was creeped out about it.

What do y'all think?

[Projammer]

Sounds like something to enable helicopter parents to make the transistion to suppository parents.

Really. I've got better things to do than track my childrens every waking moment. You raise them and teach them responsibility and then give them the opportunity to demonstrate they were paying attention.

[Marley23]

I wonder how many parents would really bother with ridiculous paranoid crap like this. I'm sure it's tempting to correct your teenager at every turn, but like Projammer says, it has to be very time consuming. Even parents in the "I'm going to give my kid the best possible start in life" [meaning 'I will do everything for them'] crowd has to run out of energy at some point unless they have completely gone around the bend.

Yes, this stuff is creepy and shortsighted. No matter how bad teens are at driving and how nerve-wracking it is to give the car to an inexperienced driver, kids usually don't develop into adults until they are given the responsibility that comes with it, and that includes doing things on their own.

[Der Trihs]

I wonder how many parents would really bother with ridiculous paranoid crap like this.Quite a few I think; look all at the parents in the Pit thread about spying on kids who think kids deserve no privacy whatsoever, and talk as if not spying on your kids will make them grow up into criminals.

Yes, this stuff is creepy and shortsighted. No matter how bad teens are at driving and how nerve-wracking it is to give the car to an inexperienced driver, kids usually don't develop into adults until they are given the responsibility that comes with it, and that includes doing things on their own.This product seems aimed at as the sort of control-freak parenting that IMHO results in kids turning into binge drinkers or otherwise wildly self indulgent once they are at college, or otherwise out from under the parental thumb. They've never had the opportunity to use their own judgement, make their own decisions or learn self control, after all.

[begbert2]

On the other hand, I can see how being able to (merely) look up the location of the car could come in handy, in a variety of situations, not all of which involve unjustified paranoia.

[Cat Fight]

I was sure this would be about this case (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9158818/Pa._schools_spy_on_students_using_laptop_webcams_claims_lawsuit?taxonomyId=84), where the school gave kids laptops then spied on them via webcam.

I can understand the appeal of GPS but not much else.

[needscoffee]

Just knowing there's a GPS tracker in the car is supposed to improve the driving practices. And having a tracker in the car of a new teen driver is not always a bad thing. More accidents occur with new drivers. I'd rather be overprotective than find out the hard way that my kid was one of the drivers who got smashed up racing. I read in the local paper at least monthly of teens killed in car wrecks who were speeding way out of control.

These GPS trackers come with different features for different purposes. You might was one that can tell you if your teen is speeding; someone else might want to know if they're hanging out in drug neighborhoods. Someone else might want one for a teen who was previously ticketed for speeding or inattention, to help them remain focused. I've been looking for a cheap one, myself, for my new teen driver who has been, shall we say, less than truthful about where she's been. I would imagine that not too many parents use these who don't already have previous situations causing them concerns.

[Cat Fight]

(Oops, I see it's already being pitted (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12135341&posted=1#post12135341).)