Where’s Your Child?

By Greg Bartlett

Recently, our local newspapers began heralding the disappearance of a young girl as she walked home from school. For a few days, everyone worried about her, but then she was found – dead. Unfortunately, her story is not unique. Children do sometimes disappear, especially when alone, such as walking home from school. But some parents don’t have a car or the time and ability to pick up their child after school just to drive a couple blocks to home. After all, the school is what, three blocks away? Surely it would be safe to let your fourteen-year-old walk that far on his or her own.

GPS & Children

Maybe, maybe not. Most likely nothing will happen, but as a parent you worry that one day something will happen. Your child has a cell phone, of course, but if he or she is kidnapped, the kidnapper may throw away the cell phone. But there are other options available, such as GPS tracking.

Personal GPS tracking devices are becoming more and more popular among parents, who can use the devices to monitor their child’s location and activities.

If your child walks to and from school each day, for instance, or even rides the bus to school but walks to your place of employment after school, you know that your child may be walking alone for part of the day. You can’t come and pick him or her up each day, but with a GPS tracking device, you can monitor your child from wherever you are and watch to see that he or she arrives safely.

If your child does happen to be kidnapped and you’re monitoring the child’s location and path, you’d notice the aberration right away. Even if you’re not actively watching the GPS device’s report, you can set it up so that if your child leaves the predetermined path or particular boundaries, you’d be instantly alerted. You could call police at once, the moment your child is kidnapped, and would be able to follow your child’s location so that the police could find your child before it’s too late.

When you were a child, you may have walked a couple miles safely to school or work, but in today’s world it just doesn’t seem safe to permit your child to do the same. However, with GPS tracking, you can help to ensure your child’s safety while still allowing him or her – and yourself – as much freedom as possible to go about your daily routine.

Tags: child, family, GPS tracking device, safety