Anna Maxted tests a new device that enables parents to track their child via satellite from a computer or mobile 'phone.
(First Published: 19 Oct 2009)
Testing the NuM8 GPS
The last time I mislaid a child - my four-year old, in the park, for 15 endless minutes - I wished unashamedly that he could be chipped, like the cat.
When Steve Salmon's young daughter vanished during a family pub lunch (later found petting a pony in the adjacent field), he doubtless wished the same thing. Two years on, Salmon, chief executive of communications firm Lok8u, launched the equally tongue-twisting NuM8, the world's first GPS locator for children.
To all appearances, it's a chunky, child-friendly wristwatch, worn by the subject, that enables the fond parent to track their darling via satellite from a computer or mobile 'phone. But this is not a gadget for the morally squeamish. Behind the bright colours - choose from aqua blue, hot pink and lime green, or neutral black - the rubber strapf contains a "web of reinforced steel". If anyone - rebellious child or dastardly adult - attempts to remove the locator from its assigned wrist, Mummy or Daddy is alerted from their cappuccino via text.
According to the charity Missing Persons, formerly National Missing Persons Helpline, an estimated 140,000 children and young people run away or go missing every year in the
United Kingdom. This, coupled with mothering three boys, has eroded my principles. I cannot wait to tag my kids.
Guilt forces me to opt for full disclosure. I tell the seven-year-old, "This is like a Ben 10 watch. You wear it, and I track you, like the police track baddies who try to escape from prison." Happily, as the NuM8 is a "wrist device", not an asbo-style ankle lock, Oscar is touchingly thrilled, imagining himself a secret agent on a mission, as opposed to, say, a burglar under house arrest.
I hunch over my phone in the park café, compulsively following the blue balloon on the screen's Googlemap that proves that Oscar is safe beyond the trees, racing down the hill on his scooter without a helmet.
It's a luxury to sit for five minutes and know that one's offspring has not been dragged out of the park by a predator or, more likely, wandered off with a friend. I know he is fine, because my husband has marked a "safe zone" on the map - if Oscar breaches the park perimeter, I receive a warning text, and 'live tracking' will commence. I can also text WRU - which I imagine is lazy, SMS-speak for "Where are you?" - at any time, and the device will send me his coordinates.
Yet, as the locator doesn't record heights, there's always the chance that he might climb a tree - and, sipping espresso while staring at the screen balloon on my phone, if he fell out, I'd be none the wiser until the ambulance arrived. Suddenly, I feel NuM8's reassurance is insufficient. I'm ready to step surveillance up a level. Might I suggest the next generation wristwatch comes with a hidden micro-camera, angled at my child's face?
This may be why, when I describe my new toy to Honor Rhodes, director of development at the Family and Parenting Institute, she is unimpressed.
"Is this," she says, "a symptom of panic-stricken but lazy parenting? I wonder what it is that we are trying to guard against, and I think it is that we don't want our child to be Madeleine McCann. While that was so terrible, the worst thing that could possibly occur, it happens incredibly rarely. Your child is more likely to be struck by lightning."
Against the dreadful but minute possibility of abduction stands the child's right to explore, says
Rhodes. "Children need to wriggle out of from under the parents' gaze and encounter the world in their own way. Children like a bit of risk, and part of our job as parents is to be able to bear this rather than respond, because we can, with a bit of kit."
Rhodes is correct, of course. But, I empathise with Salmon's "blind panic", on realising his eight-year-old had vanished. At such a moment, you'd sell your soul to ensure your child's safety.
Rhodes remains unmoved. "Could we not find better ways to keep our children safe that are about our relationship? If your children aren't chipped and pinned, you have to talk to them about where they can and can't go. Parenting is about negotiating and relinquishing degrees of control, so that by the time your child is a young teenager, they can make their way in the world."
I may have to resort to words whether I like it or not, for while the software works, it is slow - not quite 24, more like 12. I am a technological halfwit, and Salmon emphasises that the locator is an 'extension' to, not a replacement for, parenting. Yet an 18-month contract for a safety aid dependent on a mobile 'phone signal and a charged battery has its flaws.
My resolve is tested when the three-year-old disappears into a school playground. He eventually turns up, happy and breathless, after a game of chase with the big children. I say sternly: "I didn't know where you were, and I was frightened. Do not run off again!" He apologises, then speeds out of sight. One day, I fear, I'm going to have to trust him.
