It is quite easy to see that the world has become incredibly dangerous for children. Parents often deliberately strip a part of their kids’ precious childhood by restricting them at home or at places where they can be easily seen. Children want to be adventurous and do many things they want. However, parents are concerned that children will get into trouble or meet some bad people. However, as children grow, we need to let them to make some mistakes and learn from them. This is an important of the education process and we don’t educate children properly, if they can’t learn from mistakes. Once children are able to go outside of the house on their own, this can be among the hardest times for parents. Parents may think that their children are not mature enough to handle themselves alone outside the house. For the most parts, this is true. However, it is possible to implement a degree of monitoring using the current technology. GPS is a technology that can provide both children and parents with a sense of security.
There are now devices that are based on GPS technologies. Some of them are designed to be carried easily by children. The device could be attached to the child’s belt and it tracks the movement of children continuously. Parents will be able to find the location of the child from their smartphones or computers. It means that parents can be sure that children are still at schools. Once children go outside the school, an alarm can be triggered and this is implemented using the geo-fencing technique. It means when a child goes out of an area, the system will notify parents about this situation. The device also has a SOS button that can be pressed by the child during an emergency. Depending on how the device is programmed, the system will contact the parent and/or the authority. When choosing such device, it is important that the device is very easy to use, with only one or two buttons. As an example, other than the emergency button, there could be a button that directly contacts a single phone number and this allows the child to talk. It’s because the device contains a regular SIM card. It means that the device functions as a simplified cell phone with embedded GPS capability.
The GPS device should track the children real time, because highly active kids will change locations very quickly. The GPS device can be synchronized using existing map, such as Google Maps, which is openly available. This can be implemented quite easily on mobile devices, especially Android smartphones and tablets. For larger children and teenagers who can be trusted better, parents can use passive GPS device. It doesn’t provide real time tracking, but records the route that the child. Parents can synchronize and read the history of the route, so they know that the child goes to the correct places. The device could also record the speed, so parents will be able to monitor the driving habits of the teenage children.