[VRWCmember]

I had to post this article just to comment on the followign quote:

"If you've got a real hooligan for a 16-year-old who just got a new 2006 Mustang ... perhaps you want to track him live," Wilcher said.

In my humble opinion, If you've got a "real hooligan" for a 16-year-old, and you give that hooligan a new 2006 Mustang ... then perhaps your 16 y/o hooligan has IDIOTS for parents.

[dfwgator]

Cool kids are now going to befriend nerds who will hold their cell phones for them at the local library.

"Yeah Mom, see I was at the library the whole time."

[davisfh]

"...If you've got a "real hooligan" for a 16-year-old, and you give that hooligan a new 2006 Mustang ... then perhaps your 16 y/o hooligan has IDIOTS for parents."

Exactly! I never considered us to be "helicopter parents" but we did do a lot of supervising and protecting. She turned out to be a very nice lady who has a great deal of self confidence and decency. There were no cell phones during those years.

[Orange1998]

"People want to know where their loved ones are. It's just a dangerous world out there," King said.

This device is for careless parents who don't have the time to devote to the kids. Direct parent involvement is the answer, not some electronic device.

[js1138]

Perhaps it would help locate family members in Walmart.

[spudsmaki]

"When you start hiding bugs in your kid's car, then you're saying, 'We don't trust you,' and you're saying, 'You can't really trust us either, because we're being sneaky about it,'" Popkin said.

Dress it up any way you want honey. As long your feet are under my table, it's my rules. You want your rules, move out and pay your own freight.

My CDMA cellphone is unnerving. When I pass a time zone marker on the road, the time switches within 50 feet of the sign. I pulled over and paced it off, the GPS chip in the phone is that accurate.

Don't know how close a GSM phone would be, it triangulates among three reachable towers. Sprint is CDMA. Nextel is IDEN, don't know if it's tower or handset based.

[Warren_Piece]

I have a boy who is about to turn 10. No WAY is he mature enough to keep track of a $200 cell phone.

What say the FR masses? What is a good age to consider a cell phone for the kiddies?

[GOPJ]

Helicopter parents. It's the scornful label some give to parents ...

Or as they used to be called - "responsible parents who care about their children"...

[VRWCmember]

Pinging some of my fellow helicopter parents

[Xenalyte]

"If you've got a real hooligan for a 16-year-old who just got a new 2006 Mustang ... perhaps you want to track him live," Wilcher said.

Perhaps the GPS should be installed on the parents who bought the hooligan the 'Stang, to be tracked so they don't breed again after the hooligan kills himself and five other people.

[sit-rep]

LOL...

BTTT!!

[MistrX]

"If you've got a real hooligan for a 16-year-old who just got a new 2006 Mustang ... perhaps you want to track him live,"

If your 16-year-old is a hooligan, why in the world would you buy him a new Mustang?

[Ol' Sox]

We extended our family cell phone plan to give our teenaged sons (13 and 14) the "longer leash". It has yielded mixed results.

When the whole family went to Disneyworld last April, the guys were able to go off on their own and hit the action rides, while my wife, my 5 yr. old daughter and I traveled at a more leisurely pace. We all stayed in touch, and it worked out great - very convenient. The downside was that they racked up lots of minutes chatting and text messaging friends - basically bringing them along on a virtual vacation (one called his bud from inside the Tower of Terror).

Now I keep the extra phones and hand them out as necessary. If they want to chat for hours, they use the Vonage phone.

[longtermmemmory]

Disney now sells the "Nany State Phone"

[ut1992]

Your statement is so true. Boy have times, or parents, changed.

My folks had to deal with 5 boys. We each had to work for our cars; e.g. the folks would match our own individual savings in order to buy a car. We each had to work to pay for gas and 1/2 of the insurance. We also had to keep good grades or the car was gone.

If you got a moving violation you would loose your driving privileges for a month...no questions asked or answered.

If we didn't "check-in" periodically if they told us to when away from the house, you had to deal with "Rolling Thunder" as my Dad used to call it. And if you thought you could get away with it when Dad was gone, Mom would quickly disamuse you of that silly notion.

If we kids messed up (and we did...we weren't perfect), Dad would always respond with.."BOY, WHAT'S YOU PROBLEM....are you nervous?", which in retrospect sounds a lot like today's version of .."BOY, are you stuck on stupid". He would stand two inches from our face like an old drill sergeant.

[sionnsar]

"The high-profile reason is to protect their kids from predators,"

How does this accomplish that?

[TChris]

All this, and parents will be absolutely baffled that their kids have absolutely zero personal judgment or problem-solving skills. Mommy and daddy always take care of things.

[dogbyte12]

Wait until we get totally cashless. Kids won't know what hit them. There are already debit cards for kids that the parents add allowance money on, instead of paying a cash allowance. Every item purchased gets rung up. Enterprising kids will find a way around it, such as trading $20 of innocent debit usage for $16 cash, but there is going to be no anonymity in the future.

The next big thing will be a service that parents can use to track kids on public spy cams with facial recognition software. All cameras in the database will have your kids photo in it, and notify you with a picture email of what and where your kid is doing something.

[SuziQ]

If you've got a "real hooligan" for a 16-year-old, and you give that hooligan a new 2006 Mustang ... then perhaps your 16 y/o hooligan has IDIOTS for parents.

Turer words were never spoken!

[MayflowerMadam]

Until I was 18 years old, there wasn't a minute of the day when my parents didn't know where they could find me. GPS isn't the answer; parenting is.