Child Tracking

I feel like I'm almost ahead of the game here. Recently, there have been at least two instances of children (well, teenagers really), who have been kidnapped from their local surroundings – one outside of Target of all places. These girls were not doing anything dangerous, or even borderline concerning. One was just getting stuff at Target in the middle of the day – there is really nothing safer than that – I would think. But, instead of going happily to her car, she is abducted and found dead 15 miles from the Target store. The police were able to use her cell phone signal to track her location – but obviously, it wasn't quick enough or precise enough. Cell phone signals are decent for getting a general vicinity kinda location – but not enough to pinpoint someone's precise whereabouts.

For a couple years now, my wife and I have been debating with what is the best way to track our kids – specifically the older one because she is away from the house the most without us. I looked into numerous methods and devices and most were pricey and had no benefit to the child – which means that she would conveniently "forget" it or lose it. If something has no practical purpose to a child or adolescent, the odds are they won't use it – and it has to go with whatever they are wearing. Finally, we found just the thing we needed, it was small, useful, and has a 99% chance of being taken with my daughter wherever she goes because its her cell phone! Now, I know I just said cell phones are great for tracking, but this one is different. It doesn't track the child using cell towers, it uses GPS signal and satellites to pin-point her location – and she doesn't even know it. Rather than buying a $500 pager-like device, I got a used LG Chocolate (Verizon network) on Ebay and will activate it with the Chaperone service for $10 a month. For the, I get the ability to see where my daughter is, in real-time from any computer with internet access, or my phone. That's the best deal in child tracking going. And, my daughter gets to be the envy of all her friends – which will only go to reinforce the probability that she takes the phone with her! As long as she lives with us, she will have some sort of tracking device on her. At first, I wanted to track her to make she she was being good. Now, I think that the sands have shifted and I'm actually more concerned with something happening to her that is out of her control than her being places she shouldn't be. Am I overprotective? Probably. But knowing that won't change it. As long as she is safe and I know it, we're good. It doesn't affect her at all because she doesn't even know she's being watched. If I could, I would change the position of the satellites in the sky to watch her.

I think that sometime in the near future, I'll get her signed up for some sort of self-defense / martial arts class. And then, later on, I'll get her some calf-high leather boots with a concealed dagger – just in case. Better safe than sorry, right?