Keep an eye on your kids

Who doesn’t have fond memories of the spring breaks of yore?

Whether we spent our sudden freedom exploring thawing trails with our best friends, enjoying the absence of homework, having mid-week sleepovers, or simply savoring the luxury of sleeping later than usual, most of us recall our spring breaks with sighing nostalgia.

It’s different when you’re a parent. The looming breaks of one’s children—especially for parents of “gone wild”–aged offspring—can inspire sighing of another sort, as schedules are upended and established routines trashed.

Bill, the father of a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old, mostly uses text messaging to keep in touch with his spring-breaking kids through their dizzying array of playdates, cheerleading practices, music lessons, drama workshops, and sleepovers. For these girls, as for a lot of tweens, the phone is the center of their social universe, and they are extremely unlikely to be without it for more than the time it takes to exclaim, “Totally” or to text “ttly.”

Texting couldn’t be easier.

All the parents I spoke with agreed that texting is, by far, the preferred means of communication for kids—regardless of age. Texting is easy, and it allows kids to let parents know that they are doing fine without actually having to make contact for more than a few seconds. Several parents I spoke with said that they spend far more time texting their kids than they do talking on the phone with them.

Unlike Bill, Ellen’s got full-blown teenagers to contend with, and they aren’t dependent on Mom and Dad for their transportation. Under normal circumstances, Ellen uses the phone and text features of her Windows Mobile phone to keep up with what her active offspring are up to when they’re not at home. But on those occasions when the kids head out of town with their friends or on a field trip, she sets up a recurring meeting request time that they agree on, using the Microsoft Office suite applications preloaded on their phones.

Thanks to the pre-arranged meeting time, if the kids are, say, in Florida with some school friends, they’ll know that they have a 6:30 P.M. check-in phone call with Mom. Ellen goes so far as to ask for the occasional freshly snapped picture, so she can see where the kids are hanging out. Of course, she does this pretty sparingly, so her children don’t get the feeling that she’s interfering with their vacation. She freely admits that her inquisitiveness comes more from memories of her own wayward teenage activities than from anything her kids have engaged in.

One trick that Ellen recommends is to add a number from your call history to your contacts. This way, if your child’s phone is out of juice and he or she calls you from a friend’s phone, you have that number as a backup.

One of the parents I talked to, Zarah, is taking no chances. She may appear relaxed about her son’s whereabouts and activities, but she doesn’t just depend on the occasional text or e-mail from him to help her avoid worry. She also uses the additional tracking power of GPS. There are a number of applications, such as Eagle Eye Tracker Mobile by Digital Technology Group, LLC, and Smartphone Tracker by Yaniv Nahum that can turn your Windows Mobile device into a virtual Basset Hound. If your normally conscientious teen is letting curfew slide during spring break, a fortuitous encounter with a parent at the hangout of their choice will soon convince them of the wisdom of checking in.

Now, this level of sleuthing isn’t for everyone, but if your kids are in the boundary-testing phase of adolescence, just letting them know that they can be tracked through their phone might forestall more serious transgressions.

Whether your kids are pressing you into service during their spring break, or you’re vicariously sharing their fun from far away, Windows Mobile phones give you the tools you need for just the right level of involvement. Kind of makes you wonder how our parents did it in those well-remembered spring breaks of yore.

If you are traveling with your kids to enjoy some out of town R&R, read the Traveling with children article for tips on keeping your equilibrium on land, sea, or sky.