Today I promised myself to write, and think, about the ethics of tracking your child. I want to use this time to get my initial thoughts onto paper before I start doing some research on the topic. I like this way doing things, because it means I get to look back later and see it from my uninformed viewpoint. This can be both humbling but also quite informative on my own biases, but probably more importantly, how others might see it.
I really am torn on this subject. I will try to break down why.
The catastrophizing part of my brain wants me to track my children. It tells me that there would be no bigger regret, if my child were ever kidnapped, than not having put a tracker on them. I think every parent would look back in anguish if they ever thought of tracking, but didn't, and one day their child not coming home from school.
I have, what feels like an equal force, tugging me in the opposite direction. I want my children to grow up, 'free range'. Meaning, I don't want them to sit at home hunched over a device. I want them to run outside and climb trees. I want them reading books and fighting with plastic swords and pillows.
The reason I mention the above is because one way to track your child is with a phone. Their phone. I think parents who give their children a smartphone have the 'track your kid' checkbox, checked by default. This might give them some comfort, and the catastophizing part is shouting that: "It might save their life one day!"
Something like a smartwatch could also be quite useful for checking your childrens vitals every 5 minutes of every day. It can be useful, but we are also moving into territory that I think has a net negative effect on all of us.
This may sound harsh, but if the price we pay for not having to stress about our children every 5 minutes, is that 1 in every million child dies because we did not monitor them, I think that is a world I would rather live in. I think we can make a better world if we shed some of all of our anxiety drivers.
I know, I know, I skipped past that last part pretty nonchalantly. So let us back up, and think about this hypothetically for a short while. If we as parents have, say, 100 input signals from our children. These 100 inputs could be everything from them crying, to laughing, to shouting, to not making any noise.. (every parent knows this one). Nature gave us the ability to discern these inputs. A child crying will probably spike your stress response so you can act on an event that truly does require your attention. This is all well and dandy as hunter gatherers.
Let us fast forward to today. Todays society probably dictates that today, the amount of signals from our children have increased by an order of magnitude. I would argue that many of these are self inflicted. Many of these signals are probably you, as a parent, overreacting to something that isn't really a signal.
In the grand scheme of things, adding signals to our already overburdened minds is a bad idea. We become more anxious and stressed in the long run. An anxious and stressed out parent is a bad parent. Ipso facto, a device which will constantly search for our attention to satisfy a 'false sense of security' about our child will add to all the signals that we already have a hard time dealing with.
When can also turn this around and look at the children. Will they feel confident when they are constantly being monitored? Will they be able to build trust with their parents with constant surveillance? Maybe we should dig deeper into this tomorrow.
- Trolz
I really am torn on this subject. I will try to break down why.
The catastrophizing part of my brain wants me to track my children. It tells me that there would be no bigger regret, if my child were ever kidnapped, than not having put a tracker on them. I think every parent would look back in anguish if they ever thought of tracking, but didn't, and one day their child not coming home from school.
I have, what feels like an equal force, tugging me in the opposite direction. I want my children to grow up, 'free range'. Meaning, I don't want them to sit at home hunched over a device. I want them to run outside and climb trees. I want them reading books and fighting with plastic swords and pillows.
The reason I mention the above is because one way to track your child is with a phone. Their phone. I think parents who give their children a smartphone have the 'track your kid' checkbox, checked by default. This might give them some comfort, and the catastophizing part is shouting that: "It might save their life one day!"
Something like a smartwatch could also be quite useful for checking your childrens vitals every 5 minutes of every day. It can be useful, but we are also moving into territory that I think has a net negative effect on all of us.
This may sound harsh, but if the price we pay for not having to stress about our children every 5 minutes, is that 1 in every million child dies because we did not monitor them, I think that is a world I would rather live in. I think we can make a better world if we shed some of all of our anxiety drivers.
I know, I know, I skipped past that last part pretty nonchalantly. So let us back up, and think about this hypothetically for a short while. If we as parents have, say, 100 input signals from our children. These 100 inputs could be everything from them crying, to laughing, to shouting, to not making any noise.. (every parent knows this one). Nature gave us the ability to discern these inputs. A child crying will probably spike your stress response so you can act on an event that truly does require your attention. This is all well and dandy as hunter gatherers.
Let us fast forward to today. Todays society probably dictates that today, the amount of signals from our children have increased by an order of magnitude. I would argue that many of these are self inflicted. Many of these signals are probably you, as a parent, overreacting to something that isn't really a signal.
In the grand scheme of things, adding signals to our already overburdened minds is a bad idea. We become more anxious and stressed in the long run. An anxious and stressed out parent is a bad parent. Ipso facto, a device which will constantly search for our attention to satisfy a 'false sense of security' about our child will add to all the signals that we already have a hard time dealing with.
When can also turn this around and look at the children. Will they feel confident when they are constantly being monitored? Will they be able to build trust with their parents with constant surveillance? Maybe we should dig deeper into this tomorrow.
- Trolz