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I can only guess you (and most of the other naysayers in this thread) don't have young children. My wife and I have been looking for something exactly like thi

• bamboozled 2y ago
  I thought the same, Ski resorts are classic places for kids to get lost, from now on, my kid will always have an AirTag in their pocket when on the ski resort.
• ssgodderidge 2y ago
  Agreed- just because you have these devices on hand doesn’t make you a helicopter parent. It’s just like having food storage doesn’t make you paranoid. You’re just prepared.
• Workaccount2 2y ago
  I get this, I have an uncanny memory of my youth and have clear memories of the fear that ran through me when I realized I didn't know where Mom was. However, I think this belief that humans evolved to be so sensitive to childhood trauma is incredibly over sensationalized. I'm no worse off in life despite getting lost a few times. Your kid will be fine.
  • locococo 2y ago
    Parents have a lot to contend with as it is. Making live easier by preventing the temporary loss of a child and the anxiety for both parties is a benefit. If anything this gives kids more freedom, anyone not understand this should have a set of kids first.
    • Dylan16807 2y ago
      Learning how to deal with anxiety in limited doses is an important part of childhood too. > If anything this gives kids more freedom I hope you're not too optimistic there. If it lets kids roam around outside more, than the upsides massively outweigh the downsides. But that's a very big "if".
      • locococo 2y ago
        I am speaking from experience as a father of two. The watch teaches the kids to reach out when they feel overwhelmed. They are fully in control of their own destiny. They don't always end up where they planned they were going and that is perfectly ok for me because they can reach me if there is an issue.
        • Dylan16807 2y ago
          I will note that a way to reach out does not need to involve location tracking capabilities.
          • vel0city 2y ago
            No, but it becomes a lot more useful when your kid calls scared and barely able to talk and have generally no idea where they are.
            • Dylan16807 2y ago
              Even in that situation, at most you need some way to get a location at that moment when they chose to reach out to you, not tracking.
          • locococo 2y ago
            My kids spend a lit if time outside, riding bikes running around the forest... If they have an accident it's useful to be able to get to them quickly. Please spare me a response about the qualities of facing adversity and walking home 3 miles with a broken collar bone. If you lack the imagination of how location information is useful then that is ok. Companies offer it because it is, and people want it
  • stickfigure 2y ago
    Thanks. Yeah, I agree - I'm not worried for him, he's going to be fine. But I think he would be willing to roam more freely if he had the security blanket of being able to reach out to mama & papa if he needs it. I'm sure he'll grow out of that like every other kid.
  • bdd8f1df777b 2y ago
    > However, I think this belief that humans evolved to be so sensitive to childhood trauma is incredibly over sensationalized. I'm no worse off in life despite getting lost a few times. Your kid will be fine. If that is true, then you cannot say that tracking your child's every step will traumatize them permanently either.
    • vasco 2y ago
      I don't think people are saying it does. It doesn't cause trauma, just causes overdependence on "someone watching over me", as well as a diminished sense of the value of privacy.
• sangupta 2y ago
  Exactly what I came to say. I need something for my daughter to connect with and/or track her while playing with her friends outside. It is difficult to always be on her lookout, and any other watch tracks them more. I need control to see who they are talking to, chatting with, what apps they use, and controlling screen time. Few kids in her class are already on IG/Tiktok courtesy their elder siblings and I do not want my daughter to be exposed to such crap. Edit: also to inform her in case I am running late to pick her up from school due to traffic or otherwise.
  • doublerabbit 2y ago
    > I need control to see who they are talking to, chatting with, what apps they use, and controlling screen time. Sure it's not my right to tell you how to parent. However I ask have you not sat down with your daughter and explained her the dangers and consequences? Restrictions are what you want. Restrict her from downloading apps, ask her to show you her messages. Limit her screen time when she's done her chores. Don't hide and sneak controlling her habits in the back scenes because if you loose her trust you won't get it back. Unless by controlling you do mean restricting which changes the tone completely.
    • vel0city 2y ago
      An 8 year old doesn't really have a fully developed mind. You can often talk with them that jumping out of the tree will likely break their arm, but chances are when you're not looking they're still going to jump. Little kids often struggle understanding and remembering consequences, especially of really big complex ideas. There's a reason why we don't just let 12 year olds drive.
  • blairbeckwith 2y ago
    Why do you feel like you “need” this, though? I think that’s exactly what GP is saying – not disagreeing that it might have utility, but that there is a cost associated as well. The world is just statistically not that scary, and it’s good to let our kids make mistakes and get lost and find their way and face adversity and survive. Me and my wife differ in our perspectives on this. She is more of a “safety at any cost”, whereas I am more of a “free range kids”. I know the world has changed since I was a teenager, but our parents never knew where we were, who we were chatting with on the internet, and we turned out great.
• tdeck 2y ago
  I hope this question doesn't offend, but have you taught your son what to do when he gets lost? Explicitly teaching and practicing strategies like this can help a lot. I was always taught to 1) stay where you are, not try to walk around and 2) approach someone who works at the store and tell them you're lost, your name, and your parents name. I also memorized my address and home phone number. Obviously that doesn't work in every situation but I think it gave me more confidence that I could handle things as a kid.
  • speff 2y ago
    That's what I was wondering. I got lost at a basketball game when I was 5. Went up to an officer and told them my parents were lost. Sure it was scary, but it wasn't some scarring incident...
  • XorNot 2y ago
    This logic moves right into victim blaming territory real quick though. "Have you taught your child what to do if they get lost?" doesn't fix the fact that you don't know what they'll do till it happens, and then it might be too late. I'd much rather have a backup system in case they don't do the right thing in case they panic. I'll also point out that your advice here is statistically unsound: there's the baked in "stranger danger" element - "approach a police officer/approach someone who works at the store". See, no one wants to say "approach literally the first adult you see" because "stranger danger"...but statistically, there aren't a lot of predators around. The longer a child is unattended with no one helping them, the more time an active predator has to spot and isolate them. But no one can put that extremely small risk that literally the first random adult in a major shopping center is actually going to be one, so we always qualify the advice with "find an authority figure preferentially" (increasing the time they're alone and obviously unattended).
    • tdeck 2y ago
      My point was that if OP's son is still terrified of getting lost, it might help him to have concrete plans in advance that come from an authority figure, including a plan that doesn't rely on having a specific device, charge, and signal each time. The specifics of whom to approach are up to the parent and child - I'm just giving one example. Also, I think "victim blaming" isn't an apt term in this case. Getting lost is almost never caused by someone being victimized, it's caused by lack of attention and then lack of a way to resolve the situation on your own.
• hehdhdjehehegwv 2y ago
  I have young children and manage just fine without broadcasting their location to a Megacorp with a long history of violating children’s privacy laws.
  • locococo 2y ago
    I am happy for you, I am sure the sane logic could be applied to get rid of car and home insurance
    • hehdhdjehehegwv 2y ago
      And the same logic of monitoring junior 24x7 will have you putting diapers on an 18 year old.
• Foreignborn 2y ago
  This is a bit of projection. I have a child younger than yours and I feel exactly like OP. I’m really sorry about your son’s experience. Getting lost can be terrifying for a kid. But being lost happens (eg I was lost in hunting woods at 8yo), and many commenters have shared their experiences. Being scared and eventually overcoming the fear is a quintessential growing experience. Obviously there are countless caveats because each kid is different, and depends on the level of danger etc
  • wonderwonder 2y ago
    That's the wonderful thing though, everyone is free to raise their kids as they see fit. Original comment about "I threw up a little in my mouth just from the headline" is obviously ridiculous and attempting to shame parents that opt for this kind of device. Regardless of the choice the parent makes, odds are the kid is going to grow up just fine. There was no need for OP to make an incendiary comment.
    • Dylan16807 2y ago
      It's shaming constant tracking, not anyone that might buy this. And that probably should be shamed.
      • wonderwonder 2y ago
        why? What's the harm with knowing where your minor kids or opted in spouse are? Honest question.
        • godelski 2y ago
          Your kids don't learn independence and how to be self sufficient. After all, the goal is to make your kids into self-sufficient adults who can survive and navigate a complex world without your help. Being over protective (which is a natural instinct) can lead to children being overly dependent and not learning to be (to put in the most HN way possible) generalist agents. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40519118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40519118
• CostcoFanboy 2y ago
  > I remember many times as a kid having my parents call out on the PA system when I got lost in a department store. How many times can you lose a child before it stops being accidental? It's a department store not Disney Land.
  • stickfigure 2y ago
    If you're really that curious, I can get you in touch with my 80y-old parents and you can question their parenting skills directly.
• Barrin92 2y ago
  >I can only guess you (and most of the other naysayers in this thread) don't have young children. or they don't hail from a culture where helicopter parenting has become the norm. Here in Germany tracking your kids like this would be widely seen as completely bizarre. There's a great Japanese TV show, called Old Enough, (that has been running for 30 years, long before smartphones existed), where kids as young as 2 and 4 run off and navigate public transport and do daily errands. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UA1kd72sbg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UA1kd72sbg
  • IncreasePosts 2y ago
    The show only exists because the parents accept that their kid is safe due to the camera crew. There's a reason they don't just strap a gopro to the 2 year old and plop them on a bus, and you will not see 2-4 year olds by themselves in Japan, or almost any nation.
    • Barrin92 2y ago
      Sure, the tiniest kids are on the show because it's funny and adorable but it doesn't really change the general point. I've lived in Tokyo and you see elementary school aged kids 6, 7 years old alone all the damn time. When I was in elementary school I was off on my bike every day. This is normal in much of the world. And there weren't any trackers. And that's actually important, because being on your own without the safety net is what builds confidence.
      • IncreasePosts 2y ago
        Okay, and if American parents are too afraid to let their children do this, isn't a tracker watch a good thing, because it will open them up to the possibility of letting their kids go out without them?
    • tjpnz 2y ago
      You will see that in rural Japan.
  • 2y ago
• natnatenathan 2y ago
  There are a whole set of things we did differently when I was a kid. For example, we always had a plan for where we were going to meet up, because cell phones hadn’t been invented. We also had a lot more experience getting lost in low stakes settings, which helped build the needed skills and confidence to deal with getting lost in more complicated scenarios.
• gonzo41 2y ago
  Give your kid a hurricane whistle on a lanyard. You'll never not know where they are.
• sho_hn 2y ago
  I got lost in Valletta on Malta during a family trip when I was probably around 7 or 8, and it's one of my proudest and most formative memories from that period of childhood, even if it was scary as hell. Valletta occupies a tongue of land thrust into the ocean. I got lost in the middle of the city, and had to come up with a plan for how to get back to my parents. I realized I'd probably be able to find it from the promenade as we had walked it a fair bit. I recalled my Dad showing me the city map and pointing out the streets were on a very regular grid pattern perpendicular to the shores. So I headed down a street until I hit the shore. Then I realized I was on the wrong side, so I decided to round the entire coastline to get to the right, opposing shore. This was foiled by some sort of fenced-off military installation or something (scary!), but I was eventually able to make it to the other side by circumnavigating it. I got pretty close to our hotel when I ran into my Mom who was desperately searching for me. My backup plan was to hover around streetside cafés looking for non-scary looking tourists speaking my language and ask them for help if it got too late. It's so seared into my mind, I almost want to believe I'd still recognize the landmarks. I was definitely very scared and agonizing. But I've always felt very good that my plan worked and that I was able to get out of my first little crisis. I'm not sure what the lesson of this story is. It's probably not to get your kids lost on purpose. Showing them a map of where they are and studying it together is great for sense of place and navigation, though -- make sure they know where they are at least roughly, not just that you can track them.
  • gen220 2y ago
    A friend of mine with interesting parents had an experience like this, except it was planned by her father! He told her they were going somewhere together, then dropped her off at a random metro station and told her if she couldn’t make it home in an hour she should call home with a pay phone, and here’s a quarter. She brought it up in a pretty resentful way (understandably, because it’s basically abandonment?), but it was also a pretty formative experience in that she did pull it off and she’s a fiercely independent person. Not giving parenting advice to be clear, just adding another colorful story! :)
    • mythhabit 2y ago
• cambaceres 2y ago
  Good point. I won't buy these for my kids to wear every day when walking to school, but using them when traveling and going to the mall etc sounds very convenient.
• jimbob45 2y ago
  I lost him on a ski slope The HN crowd won’t be sympathetic but I most certainly am. It’s not until you get lost skiing that you realize how difficult it might be to meet back up, particularly if you forgot where you parked in the sea of cars. A kid might not know to go wait at the front desk too (which one’s the front desk anyway?) and then you have to worry about exposure.
• tcmart14 2y ago
  What I would like is not something that allows me to track my kids 24/7. But I would like a device my kids could have, when they are lost, or an emergency, or they need me to locate them, they can press it and it will then share their location for the duration of that event. Pretty much just an SoS device. Addition: Even outside of just the kids. When my wife works a late shift at the hospital, she would like a device like this for the walk in darkness out to her car in the parking lot. Or similar situation where she had to do an emergency road trip to handle an emergency with her dad and would like to have a device that can alert me and temporarily give location if she needs top stop and get gas at 2 in the morning.
• karencarits 2y ago
  Children getting lost can also be in real danger, not only psychologically pain. It's just six month since a seven year old died in Norway after getting lost in the woods; he was hiking with his parents and wasn't off their sight for long, but a large search party was still unable to find him in time. It's rare, but we must also remember that all the "success stories" in this thread suffers from survivorship bias
• kelnos 2y ago
  > I lost him on a ski slope once over a year ago and I think he's still traumatized I wonder if that has more to do with how you reacted to the situation when you found him, than what he felt while he was lost. > I can only guess you (and most of the other naysayers in this thread) don't have young children. Ah yes, this old saw. As if none of us remember what it was like to be a kid. As if none of us remembers getting separated from our parents and lost for a short time, and how that felt. > This isn't for teenagers. It's for kids that are still attached to mama/papa. Conditioning a small child to become used to pervasive real-time tracking won't just go away if you stop tracking once they're teenagers. And regardless, I'm sure there are plenty of parents of teens today who force their kids to turn on location sharing on their phones. > It's not necessarily even for everyday. But field trips, amusement parks, big crowded events, hell even shopping malls? I remember many times as a kid having my parents call out on the PA system when I got lost in a department store. So you do remember what it was like to get lost as a kid! Did becoming lost in a department store a bunch of times traumatize you? While that's not the same as getting lost on a ski slope, it's not that different.
• kundejenny 2y ago
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