Parenting Teens? There's An App For That!

Growing up in New York City, I had a lot of autonomy. With my monthly bus pass (in the coolest bus pass holder ever — trust me — bright purple, bought at a tiny stationery store on 61st and Central Park West), I was pretty much my own keeper. As long as I stuck to the MTA's web of 150 or so bus lines, I could go anywhere, anytime ... anonymously.

It's not so easy for my daughter here in our tiny town north of Boston. Oh sure, she has a driver's license now, which does mean more freedom for her (and more free time for me), but there's always the discussion around which car she should take. "I think the Acura's getting a flat, take the Miata." Most days I still pick her up after school, and her schedule is so densely packed that there's very little opportunity for her to go all Thelma and Louise on me. Basically, she drives a half hour to the stable, a half hour back. Otherwise she's either working with her horse, working at a part-time job, or working on homework.

(BTW, do we see a theme here? With all that "working," it's no wonder she rolls her eyes if anyone implies that high school should be the time of her life. I just hope she hasn't burned out completely before she heads to college.)

I typically do know where my teen is, but I know a lot of other mothers who don't. Maybe their kids aren't as over committed as mine. And it can definitely be a worry. The world is big and our children are small. Well, at this stage, they're not really. But, we still think of them that way.

Microchipping is tempting, but not readily available yet. 

Calm down, my conspiracy theorist friends. I'm only kidding. 

Not that the concept is far-fetched or even unlikely at some point in the future. Reality-show host Troy Dunn (“APB with Troy Dunn”) says “I only support GPS chip monitoring for convicted felons while in prison and on parole; for sex offenders forever; and for children if parents opt in. I am adamantly against the chipping of anyone else.”

Phew! I feel better now. (WTF!)

So what's a nervous mother to do? Fortunately, we live in a world of ubiquitous smartphones and countless apps. There are several designed to help us keep tabs on our offspring:

Find My Kids — Footprints
Real-time GPS tracking of your teens and their movements. You can track them individually or coordinate with the locations of other (also tracked) teens. Creepy.

Family Tracker
A similar system lets you track the entire family. It includes built-in messaging and "a loud annoying siren" feature if you need to get someone's attention. Whoa!

SecuraFone
This takes GPS tracking to another level (and one, admittedly, that may be of great interest to those of us parenting new drivers). Not only do you know where your kids have gone — you know how fast they drove to get there!

iCam

Of course, you can't always be home when they are. This is a webcam video streaming app that lets you spy on ... er, I mean ... monitor your teens in their rooms, your kitchen, or anywhere you put a camera.

'Don't know whether it's because I'm a liberal or because I've read too many dystopian novels. But, to my mind, all of these fairly reek of "big brother." Plus, my daughter already has enough reasons to roll her eyes and resent me. There is one app that struck a chord though. Heres' why.

I'm not a control freak. Not really. (Okay, I am, BUT I generally do control those control freak controlling tendencies.) What I really want is to be able to connect with my teen. To ask where she is and when she'll be home. Because always I care and because sometimes I actually need to know. The problem is, my daughter doesn't always "hear" my call or sometimes "see" my text. (Um, right, okay, if she says so.) That leads me to the app:

Ignore No More

No tracking, no spying. This app hits kids where they live ... on their phones! It's very simple. If your teen doesn't answer when you call them, you automatically and remotely disable their phone. They can't make or get a call (except to 911). They can't text. They can't use Facebook or Instagram. Once they call you back, they're back — to smartphone business as usual.

Bottom line? They're at your mercy. Bah ha ha ha ha ha ha. (Insert evil mom laugh here.) The name says it all. They can ignore you no more. And the beauty is, in a world with so few consequences, you can actually follow-through. "Call me back or else ..." 

Or, you can always go ahead and get that microchip.

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Chips Ahoy, Kids

When my now teen daughter was little, we often took "discovery walks" around our historic town. We played a version of "I Spy" and found all sorts of things. Sometimes, we would spot a sad, hand-made sign alerting us to the fact that someone's beloved dog or cat was lost.

Missing: Fluffy Poo-Kitty

White Persian with Blue Eyes

Last Seen on Clifton Street

Reward Offered

This would, of course, seem like a tragedy to my daughter and I would reassure her that chances were, Fluffy Poo-Kitty was either on an exciting adventure with her feline friends or more likely already safe and sound at home again.

(I think I've already made my position on stretching the absolute truth clear in a previous post.)

About this time, my ad agency did some creative work for a chain of veterinary clinics. Did you know that one of the most profitable products they can sell their patients' families is microchipping? This simple process involves inserting a minuscule microchip under the dog or cat's skin. If the animal is found by the police, it can be traced back to its owners. Happy ending all around.

Well, teenagers are neither dogs nor cats, my friends. And, I was disturbed to read about a program currently being implemented in Texas, called the "Student Locator Project." No, kids are not being surgically microchipped (at least not yet), but they are being forced to wear new student ID's that have RFID, radio-frequency identification, devices built-in. This technology will track the location of each student. Like a GPS system or a homing missile.

Yikes!

Apparently, the state has an enormous truancy problem. Also (apparently), the state has been less than successful dealing with said problem. So instead of cracking down on the offenders, they are now planning to track all students, all the time. In some schools, students who select not to wear the new devices are not allowed to vote for Prom King and Queen. In others, they are being threatened with expulsion.

I repeat ... Yikes!

Many students, parents and community leaders have issues with this new policy — and for good reason. Isn't 1984 required reading anymore? Sure, Lindsay Lohan had to wear a tracking device. But only after she broke the law multiple times. Whatever happened to privacy? Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

My daughter came home from her first week of high school, astounded by the lack of supervision. "It would be so easy to ditch!" she told me. After two years of virtual lock-down in middle school, the freedom was intoxicating. However, she isn't cutting classes. She and her peers are young adults and they are choosing to pursue their education. Besides, I believe that if their goal really was to skip school, no newfangled "smart chip" ID would hold them back. Meanwhile, they are being treated with respect and afforded the same degree of privacy and free will that this country guarantees its law-abiding citizens.

Okay, so if individuals' rights are not your concern, let's consider the logistics for a minute. The policy means providing hundreds of thousands of students with state-of-the-art technology. In the San Antonio school district alone, the program is anticipated to cost $526,065 the first year and another $136,005 per year thereafter. You can't tell me that there aren't better uses for these funds.

Here's an idea. What if that money was invested in enrichment or counseling programs for at-risk students — y'know, the same students who end up truants. Wouldn't the results be better all around?

Yesterday afternoon, my daughter went to the movies with some friends and afterwards hung out with them, at another girl's house and then at a frozen yogurt place. She "forgot" to call and tell me. As much as I would like to know where she is at any given time, I'm not going to put a GPS tracker on her mobile phone. And, the last time I checked, microchipping a human being is still the stuff of science fiction. My daughter is not my property. Those teenagers in Texas are not the property of the state.

High school should be a place where you get to practice being a responsible citizen. Not where you are treated like a convicted criminal.