[Padding]

> Suppose my child has absconded, ie gone off without telling me where they're going, I'm about to start my shift at work. Do I miss work and try and find them, or do I use this app and "force" them to respond indicating they're safe & well?

This is the equivalent of jerking a dog's leash. It's sad how ready some parents are to deny their children basic human dignity.

If you need to get to work and can't find your child, then whether you go to work or whether you run after your child is a simple matter of setting priorities and following through. Also, if your child takes off without telling you, and you have genuine reason to worry, then there's little reason to think this app will actually be of any help.

The only situation in which this app would "help" would be one where the child is not in any real danger/distress, but you'd still want to reassure yourself of the non-existence of danger (i.e. just calm your nerves), but are too lazy too actually take the steps necessary to do it properly. So lets trample that little human's dignity, for our own selfish desires, since there's only little they can do in return anyways, right?

This is disgusting.

The real tragedy here however is that children don't realize that they're actually the ones with the power in any parent-child relationship, until they've stopped being children and lost the respect for their parents. If they grasped the amount of power they hold, and occasionally jerked their parents around the same way, then these sort of apps most likely wouldn't exist.

[true_religion]

> This is the equivalent of jerking a dog's leash. It's sad how ready some parents are to deny their children basic human dignity.

Basic dignity? It's not their phones.

If you possess a work phone, and never respond to your bosses call there are consequences: you get fired, lose your income, and may soon find yourself on the streets in destitution.

If you possess a family phone, its not yours either and so you might expect consequences if you don't respond to the owners of it.

The alternative to this app is just taking away the kids phone, or grounding them (i.e imprisoning them). This is a bare slap on the wrist compared to all that.

[Padding]

> It's not their phones.

No, it's not - because they have no sensible way for providing for themselves and you have a legal obligation to provide them with the things they need for everyday life.

The food they eat also isn't theirs, but that doesn't make it alright for you to first spit into it, before serving it to them, in order for you to blow off steam.

The roof over their head also isn't theirs, but that doesn't make it alright for you to make them sleep on the street because you're too tired of them keeping you up at night.

> If you possess a work phone, and never respond to your bosses call there are consequences

Not responding to calls on your work phone may result in you getting fired, but it will not result in you being humiliated (at least not directly). From what I've seen there's a fair amount of people not responding to some calls in some situations as a way of playing the "office politics" game - so it seems for many people this is a reasonable tradeoff they engage in at times in order to advance their interests.

Also, for better or worse, there's no formal way to "quit" your family and go be the child of other, possibly better, parents. Hence, parents don't really compete on who's able to provide the best family. (Though for some reason some of them seem to compete on who's got the most obedient child.)

> The alternative to this app is just taking away the kids phone, or grounding them (i.e imprisoning them).

The analogy is lacking.

There are humongous barriers to actually get someone into prison. Simply talking back to someone, or failing to pay attention to them won't suffice to land in prison, but may very well suffice for getting grounded. Also, there's no due process for children when being grounded (There's not even any official written record of the rules that can get you grounded). But then again, grounding really is a very very mild version of imprisonment, so there's not much issue with leaving it up the parents discretion - it's just that it's a bad analogy.

But still, imprisonment, as you might have noticed, actually is a valid disciplinary measure in modern societies and at every point throughout its enforcement care is taken to protect the prisoner's dignity as a human. Of course, in reality things aren't always that rosy everywhere.. but at least the theory is sound.

Putting people on a leash, on the other hand, isn't a valid disciplinary measure - or at least it hasn't been any more for quite some time in civilized societies.

> This is a bare slap on the wrist compared to all that.

No, humiliating someone is not alright, regardless of circumstances.

If proper punishments need to be dealt out (like grounding), or proper safeguards need to be put in place (like taking away the phone), then do that.

But deluding yourself that putting someone on a leash, because you feel that the infraction doesn't actually warrant the punishment, but you're also too lazy to actually educate your child on why not to do it again, or deal with the consequences of it happening again, is not alright.

[true_religion]

I think you're being a bit hyperbolic if you say that locking someones cell phone is the same as putting them on the leash.

You make a few valid points there, but in essence I think we disagree on the severity of punishments.

I'd say being grounded is far worse than having your phone locked, yet you'd call it a fair punishment that should come first.

I'd also say that a cellular phone isn't essential to life, like food is. While you might see many middle/upper class children with phones, they're still a luxury item.