Roaming Free

Some Legoland theme parks are now fitting kids with tracking RFID bracelets when they walk in the gates. Parents like this because they don't have to fear that their kids will wander off and get lost within the park. Legoland likes it because they get more data on which attractions are most popular, and so forth.

But here's something I hadn't thought of. When parents know they can find their kids at any time, they're more likely to let them wander out of their sight. The trend over the past few decades has been more and more parental oversight all the time - supervised soccer teams and organized play dates instead of wandering down the block to see what the neighborhood kids are up to. As much as I worry about the possible lack of privacy for kids (especially teenagers) if GPS or RFID tracking grows from amusement parks to everyday life, maybe there's a silver lining here. If Mom knows she can locate Johnny whenever she needs to, maybe she won't feel the need to know his location every moment of every day.

Comments

[db]

"If Mom knows she can locate Johnny whenever she needs to, maybe she won't feel the need to know his location every moment of every day."

Conversely, if Mom believes she can let Johnny run off and do whatever because someone else (the park) is watching out for him, how long does it take for Mom to start expecting other people to be responsible for her brat? And who gets sued when Johnny wanders off and gets hurt?

I think the majority of responsible parents will not take this as carte blanche to let the kids wander off and do whatever they want, but there's always a few.

Contrary to the opinion that there's more parental supervision than ever via organized activites, I'd say that most of these organized activities are mainly a social opportunity for the parents to get out and enjoy themselves, while handing the kids over to some volunteer or paid watchers.

Also, there's a huge difference how closely kids are watched. Go out to lunch, count the number of groups that consist of 4-5 moms sitting at a table, chatting obliviously away, while their broods are busy systematically demolishing the next table over. That would never have flown when I was little. And I'm not old.

[Jason Ligon]

As long as pedophiles are also similaryly equipped with RFID beacons that clearly mark them as such, there should be no problem ...

[Mark Fox]

Adults, too, must wear the bracelets, so parents can be found when Junior hurts itself. Or to clear them by proving they weren't in the area when Junior disappeared.

[R C Dean]

I'm with Hannah on this. My childhood was spent roaming the great outdoors as part of a rolling pack of kids and dogs in a small Texas town, a freedom few if any kids enjoy today. I wonder about the long-term effects of the relentlessly structured lives that so many kids have today.

Besides, how long before kids learn how to spoof the bracelets, anyway?

[db]

You could make the argument that an amusement park (as they are today) is nearly as much an "organized activity" as playing a sport on a team.

I, too, wonder about the effects of such overly structured lives. But I don't think that letting kids run free confined in a theme park is anywhere nearly the same as letting them run free around the town.

[Mo]

I was born in 1978, so my childhood wasn't that long ago, but the entire structured fun thing is completely alien to me. Sure I did T-ball and Little League, but that was my idea and it was for a couple days a week in the spring. Most of my fun time was spent roaming around the hills, which had rattlesnakes and coyotes, playing pickup baseball, football and basketball on the street or at the local elementary school.

I wouldn't call any of our parents negligent, quite the opposite in fact and I lived in a safe area too, but the freedom that my friends and I enjoyed seems downright anarchic compared to modern parenting. We all turned out ok and it left me with a pretty healthy independent streak to boot.

[Todd Fletcher]

I've raised my kids to be such repulsive bastards that anyone kidnapping them would voluntarily turn them in right away.

[Jon Bristow]

R C Dean said: "Besides, how long before kids learn how to spoof the bracelets, anyway?"

Oooh, that sounds like a fun project... I wonder how secure their system is...

[JohnL]

LegoLand has a lot of visitors under the age of 5. Kids that age have no sense, but are very fast. Also have advanced stealth technology. The beacons are a good idea.

[The Lonewacko Blog]

What they should do is build in a WiFi-enabled shocking device. That way kids could be "reminded" not to "go there."

[Sphynx]

Apparently I'm an old fossil today, as I was born the year before JFK was assasinated. I think that one of the reasons so many urban and exurban kids have these structured (some ridgedly so) activity schedules is because both parrents either have to work or choose to work.

Sure, I was allowed to roam around a wooded rural/suburban fringe Texas town, BB/Pellet gun in hand (HORROR!). Part of this was because my mother didn't work even part time until my youngest sister was enrolled in (imprisoned in?) public school. Even then, Mom was home at lunch and afternoons, and Dad also worked in town and came home for lunch (with the whole family in the summer).

Now, parents who rightly want to provide for their little darling monsters 😉 generall both work; and very few have the luxury of working less than 10 minutes (let alone less than 10 miles) from home and family. Blame the "g(r)ubberment", I do.

[Ruthless]

"As long as pedophiles are also similaryly equipped with RFID beacons that clearly mark them as such, there should be no problem ...
Posted by Jason Ligon at June 25, 2004 03:13 PM"

What Jason said above has exposed you, Hanah, as a non-parent.
But, hey, there's a season for all things.

I'd like to see more parental thoughts now about where whippersnappers could indeed roam freely. And whether it would truly enhance their psyches.
And a note to db:
I wandered around my town to the alarm of my oblivious parents back in about 1947.
In other words, there has been no change in the protectiveness of parents. It's always been spotty.

[Ruthless]

Todd Fletcher,
Your progeny are Hit and Run's "Next Generation."

Encourage them to post now!

Don't intimidate them by telling them they must read every perverted previous post...
As the title of this whole endeavor states: Hit and Run.

[joe]

It was a different thing entirely to let your kids roam around the neighborhood when the neighborhood's streets and spaces were 1) centers of activity that left little opportunity for a child to find himself alone with a stranger, and 2) full of people who knew, or kinda sorta knew, who your kids were and who the bad guys were. Read some Jane Jacobs for more on kids in public spaces.

The changes that have occurred on both scores are at least partly the result of the way our communities are being built.

[Ruthless]

I dread asking for elaboration on your take on this joe as neighborhoods have always been dangerous.

I pen this, by the way, as I listen to the ambient sounds through an open window, on the killing fields of Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati.

[sr]

when children and parents meet at scheduled activities it's a chance for the children to get together. as someone already mentioned, it's also a chance for the parents to get together, to take a break from their, also insanely scheduled, lives, to connect with others of a, presumably, similar mind. (after all they have kids of about the same age, enrolled in the same activities)

and as an aside watch their kids.
i've seen it all too often at the park, probably the least structured activity any child sees these days.
the children are playing.
the parents are chatting.
and then something happens. someone falls, or there's a tussle. (hopefully my kids aren't involved. people freak out at kids with limited verbal skills...)
i get my kids out of the way, involved or not.
and then there's this pause.
maybe one parent comes in immediately, and tries to get an older child who looks "useful" to go summon the relevant parent to intervene.
and after a minute or two it happens.
and this is in a small park in a nice suburb which borders on a wooded area, which at least to me means that the children need pretty close supervision to prevent wandering and other dangerous behavior (like playing with sticks).
how much worse would it be in a theoretically enclosed amusement park where the parents had the addede "reassurance" of these RFID bracelets?
i'd use them, sure, but i'd be very suspect of already somewhat negligent parents leaning on them.

[Jon H]

Jason Ligon writes "As long as pedophiles are also similaryly equipped with RFID beacons that clearly mark them as such, there should be no problem "

Better yet, have the pedos fitted with RFID sensors that administer a taser-like disabling shock whenever they get too close to an RFID-wearing child.

[Rick Barton]

This tech. sounds like it has lots of good uses. But, we need to keep the government from using it to track people who don't want to be tracked.

[ladygoat]

I've been thinking recently that kids just don't have the experience of simply wandering around anymore, and that yes, that's a bad thing, because it keeps kids for learning independence and self-reliance. Cell phones, similarly, allow parents to feel better about letting their teenagers out at night and out of sight, knowing that they can be reached if needed.

[joe]

Ruthless, surely you are aware that Over the Rhine was considerably different 40 years ago. Not physically different, but culturally and economically.

If identical families lived in an old neighborhood and a sprawly neighborhood, I'd feel safer letting my kids walk around the old neighborhood.