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[potstirring] would you install GPS tracking in the car your teenager drives?


allan grossman

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Yes...and that's all part of the growing up experience. Did your parents do things that would be equal to this in your day? Mine certainly didn't. I got in trouble...and then I learned.

 

 

Sure they did. My parents occasionally called to see if I was actually where I said I was going to be. They didn't have to do it often but they did check.

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I'd rather use one of those chips that record speed and breaking length than know where they are. Chances are my kid will be drag racing his buddies back in the woods somewhere, just like I did at that age.

 

The GPS would be handy to know where exactly to go to pull the car out of the woods, though.

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Sure they did. My parents occasionally called to see if I was actually where I said I was going to be. They didn't have to do it often but they did check.

 

 

So get them a cell phone and require them to have it on. Sheesh. My parents expected me to check in, sure, but that's different than having a tracking device on the car you're driving.

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That's not even remotely the same thing. I think that's just standard decent parenting. Now tracking your child and having the ability to immobilize their car is a little different than a phone call.

 

 

Depends on how you use the information.

 

Like I said unless the kid gave me reason to mistrust him all I'd do is spot check. I figure eventually I wouldn't feel the need to check at all.

 

Tellya what - when caller ID first became available I had a phone conversation with my youngest that went like this:

 

kid: Hi, Dad. Can I stay out an hour later tonight?

 

me: No. Come home immediately, please.

 

kid: But I still have an hour left until curfew.

 

me: True, but you blocked caller ID. That leads me to believe you don't want me to know where you are. Do you need a ride home?

 

kid: No, I'll get a ride.

 

me: Good. See you in about 15 minutes.

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I would consider it. For my daughter we would ask where she was going, take note, then check her cell phone records if anything suspicious occurred. See, the records always show the location of the nearest transponder/link/whatever, so we could tell if she was somewhere she shoona been. This is not a foolproof measure, as kids will often switch cell phones, but it worked well enough for us.

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Only if I had been a failure as a parent and was not able to rear my children in a way so as to trust them. If they could not be honest with me or I had reason to beleive they were not going where they said they were, then I'd just ground them and park the vehicle. This way is much cheaper and will help the child grow up to be more responsible... IMO...

 

Amen! :)

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Not unless I distrusted him/her, which I would need a good reason for.

 

 

+1

 

I don't have any kids, it's a bit early for that, and I would never want to have any anyway. But:

From the kid's point of view, installing a GPS-monitoring-thing would probably show the kid that his/her parents don't trust him/her, which is unfortunate, really.

 

And: If you can't trust a kid, why allow the kid to have a car in the first place?

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What happens if the kid gets lost in a bad neighborhood and can't describe where they are at? What if they run out of gas and are in the middle of BFE and don't know where they are at. What happens if they don't come home and the car is crashed in a drainage ditch where no passers-by can see the car? Money well worth it to me and peace of mind. It's purpose doesn't have to be as a spy tool, which too many here are concentrating on.:idea:

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What happens if the kid gets lost in a bad neighborhood and can't describe where they are at? What if they run out of gas and are in the middle of BFE and don't know where they are at. What happens if they don't come home and the car is crashed in a drainage ditch where no passers-by can see the car? Money well worth it to me and peace of mind. It's purpose doesn't have to be as a spy tool, which too many here are concentrating on.
:idea:

 

 

:confused: That's why I have spares.

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Just a quick comment re "trusting" your teens... My wife and I stayed pretty involved in our daughter's life, probably because we saw so many NBC PSA's with role models like Ross from "Friends" encouraging us to do so, and we noticed that the children who caused the most trouble (brought drugs into our home, lied to their parents, lied to us, listened to emo) were those who were the most "trusted" by their parents. It's kind of a vicious circle - parent doesn't check up on kid because parent trusts kid, then kid does wrong or irresponsible things, but parent never finds out because parent doesn't check up on kid because parent trusts kid. Our philosophy was like Reagan's in his arms control negotiations with the Soviets: Trust but verify (now Bill Clinton will criticize me for using a Reagan reference).

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