I recently purchased a “child safe” package for each of my boys. It consists of 3 photo id cards with mag-stripe info about medical conditions, meds, height, weight, doctor, contact info etc. It supposedly would assist in getting “Amber Alert” info out more quickly. The child gets a card, the parent and a caregiver or whoever else you choose. The child is supposed to drop the card when/if (God forbid) anyone takes them.
ANYWAY while I was purchasing the kits for my boys, I asked about GPS locators and whether they are available.
Guess what? In california, it IS offered. They implant a tiny device into the gum, inside the mouth. If your child is lost, you can have the company activate the locator.
I believe its going to be expensive but then nothing is more precious than your little ones so if one can afford and its not harmful for child, I don't see any reason for not doing that.
btw, where did you buy that "child safe" package? mind shearing?
The kit I got is made by a company called Kidz-iDz. They had reps at all of our local grocery stores and also had local police assurance that they cooperate with this company and approve of the idea.
As far as the GPS thing, the "harm" to the child would be putting them thru a surgery to implant the device - minor surgery but surgery nonetheless. And many people feel that its going overboard or a voilation of rights to be able to track location of a person this way. I quite disagree when it comes to children and their safety. But I live in NY which is more conservative than california and so its not offered here.
z and i were talking about it and she was worried that if someone wanted t kidnap kids they would then want to cut the tags out..
I am a proponent of it though, becaus emy view is if somoene is so psychotic that they would cut it out of a kid, then even if it as not there the perp's intentions and outcome is nto going to be good and this just gives added security..I would rather have a perp cut it out of a child's mouth but then gets caught and teh child is safe rathe rthan finding the child in a ditch 2 weeks later..
sorry for being so graphic and blunt.
I btw have no sympathy for these child molester predator type psychos, and it worries me that these guys are crusing thru areas keeping eyes on kids or whatever. I mean what have we heard abotu this, kid is left alone for a few mins or whatever and boom the kid is kidnapped...I mean what is the likelihood..
I tell ppl to also find out who are the registered child molestors in their area, have neigbourhood watches to check for any suspicuosu vehicles circling the area or even driving by periodically..
Mr F, its such a worry isnt it? I share the concern that your wife has, but then again, since the implant is smaller than a grain of rice and is placed behind the last molar in the back of the mouth, it isnt likely that any predator would be able to determine whether or not any particular child had the implant.
Thank goodness there are websites now where you can find the child molesters in your area. It does help to be vigilant. Worry wort that I am though, I'd go for the GPS thing. Little ones are so very trusting and dont understand "stranger danger".
and forget lil ones for a sec, the danger to teens and tweens, did u see the type of psychos on that 't catch a predtor' show. I mean rabbis, doctors, techies, soldiers, u name it..balck, white, hispanic, indian..whata frikkin eye opener.
I dunno it just sounds too strange....and you dont know what kind of side effects it may have on your child in the future.
I wouldnt do it. I know that it is a scary world out there. I would so my best to protect my children when the time comes inshAllah.......the rest is in Allah's hands. No device in the world will give them better protection.
May Allah keep all your children under His protection....ameen.
Thank goodness there are websites now where you can find the child molesters in your area. It does help to be vigilant. Worry wort that I am though, I'd go for the GPS thing. Little ones are so very trusting and dont understand "stranger danger".
im not a parent so perhaps i dont know better but....
why on earth would u give such young children the opportunity to talk to strangers? shouldnt one be more vigilant and shouldnt you be near them at all times?
angel eyes, what is your definition of such young children...and what do u mean by opportunity to talk to strangers. if yu read about majority of cases it was one unfortunate slip up, two lil boys snuck out of their house to go to a neighbourgood basketball court and boom tehy were kidnapped. no matter how vigilant a parent is there are times u can lose sight or kids do something they ae not supposed to do.
the point then becomes what can you do to have a higher probability that the child would be found soon and before the kid is raped or killed.
what i mean is that when u have young kids…like say pre-school age…when would they have the opportunity to talk to strangers? shouldnt they be supervised?
Thank goodness there are websites now where you can find the child molesters in your area. It does help to be vigilant. Worry wort that I am though, I'd go for the GPS thing. Little ones are so very trusting and dont understand "stranger danger".
Can you please give me the details of the websites. You can PM me if you want.
Ms Angel, yes little ones should be supervised at all times. Their safety is in the hands of others once they start going to pre-k, daycare, babysitter so you’re placing much trust in wherever your kids go. My 5 year old goes to kindergarten now. There was a letter sent home about a certain truck cruising the area and the occupant tried to lure kids into the truck from the school playground. They havent captured the guy yet. Many abductions occur in stores, malls and arcades. Imagine taking your little one to chucky cheeses - they run around all over the place in there and even being watchful, you do lose sight of them occasionally and it only takes a moment… There are so many scary what-ifs that i’d rather be over-protective and over-vigilant.
LB, the website that has the ID kit I got is kidzidz.com. When I purchased the kit at our local grocery store, the rep told me that GPS implants are available in California but not New York so I dont have specific info.
Anyway, I just went googling a bit and found an interesting set of articles on implants and tracking devices. It seems that the technology isnt quite there yet and is a bit controversial…interesting read though. I intend to keep my eyes on it. http://www.wanttoknow.info/microchipimplants
Wow, this is possibly one of the most intelligent discussions I've read here in a long while.
I don't have any children yet so my views may change drastically once I'm a father. I would like to think that I wouldn't live in a state of fear for my children. I agree, there are some horrible people out there, but I would like to think that I would have the faith in The Lord of Mercy that whatever He plans for me or my children would be the best plan. He is the best planner.
Secondly, a GPS implant just rings alarm bells in my head when it comes to things like privacy and long term effects. They don't KNOW what type of long term effects it could have, the option just hasn't been around long enough. Secondly, would you take said implant out when the child is older/in his teens? Would you tell your teenager that he/she has a GPS implant? If I were a teenager, I certainly wouldn't want my parents to always know where I am. I think it's a part of growing up and a learning process to be able to gain independence from your parents. Knowing that you are constantly being 'watched' would be some mind job. Secondly, once your child does have a GPS implant, what is to stop the government from starting to keep tabs on that "muslim child". Call me paranoid but I have read '1984' and I don't like where this world of electronic surveillance and cameras is going.
All this may change in a few years once we have a little one, inshallah!
Yes, Mr A, these are some of the issues surrounding the whole idea. You do indeed have to worry about health effects - even if the thing only "transmits" when the parent activates it. What if it gets activated by mistake and transmits constantly from within the body? The privacy issues are a big thing too, like you stated. If you scale it down and look at it in a simple way though - heck, we put lo-jak in our cars so that we can find the car if stolen and we find this to be a very good thing. A child is so much more precious. I DO think the child should be aware of such an implant and there should be certain regulations regarding the use of them. Using the lo-jack example, you couldnt call them up and tell them to find your car if you forgot where you parked it in a big mall lot, right? So in the same vein, a child locator would be activated only in the case where a child is TRULY missing. Then again, maybe I am being an overly paranoid idealist here....
ps, it isnt that you live in a constant state of fear but well once you're a parent - yeah to a certain degree, you live in a constant state of fear. They are just so very precious to you, more than your own life. And so dependent on you.
I don't know. There are so many crazy people out there that I think I would if I had the opportunity. I also recently got an ID package from the state attorney general for my kids that contains a CD that I would give to the police in the event of a kidnapping and ID cards to carry in my purse. The CD contains all of their information, including birthmarks, etc., so that police know who they are looking for immediately.
I think I would implant GPS tracking. There was recently a bulletin on the news here about a van seen around a local high school. I wonder if this could be tracked globally? My son had a really frightening incident happen this summer in Pakistan.
His Daadi Amma sent him to the shop to buy some naans, and a man pulled him into an alley. Alhamdulillah my son put up a fight, and some other men helped him and brought him home, but every time I think about what could have happened.... So yes, I would happily implant GPS into my kids, and then allow them to have it removed when they are 18. It seems the most dangerous ages for girls are the early to mid-teens.
