The toughest job to being a parent is to teach young kids to behave. This is an essential task that molds the child into the person he or she should be. Values are learned and in learning these, discipline ought to be consistent and effective.

But since kids do not come with a manual, they say, it’s not exactly easy to confirm whether what we’re doing it right. Parents, however, can avoid some of the traps that come with enforcing discipline.

For instance, there should be some flexibility when it comes to teaching children how to behave. As the kids grow, their concept of what is right and wrong also mature. We can’t be enforcing the same brand of discipline when a child is three to when a child is ten. Parents need to recognize that there needs to be an age-appropriate way to disciplining.

In the same manner, every kid is different and will respond to certain norms and rules differently. When something isn’t working with the child, no matter how you instill this in them, it’s probably best to try a different way to cultivate values and insist on proper behavior. You have to know your child to be able to tell which works best.

Lastly, discipline so that the child can understand consequences and responsibilities. Doing something out of fear defeats the purpose of teaching the child how to handle himself better and behave like he or she ought to.

This news story isn’t exactly new, but I still found it very interesting.  It’s about a dad, Isaac Daniel, who had a bad scare a couple of years ago–he received a call while at a conference that his son had gone missing.  Every parent’s worst nightmare.  He left his conference, jumped on a plane, and flew back home, only to find that his son was safe, and that his “missingness” was only due to a miscommunication.

But just because the danger is past doesn’t mean the fear has really gone away. So Daniel began working on a product, a GPS tracking chip that can be embedded into shoes.  The way I understand it, the chip remains dormant unless the parent calls into the monitoring company to activate satellite tracking.  Then the chip is activated and the shoe-wearer can be quickly located. 

These are pretty pricey–adult shoes go for $300-$325, and then there’s the $19.95 a month for the monitoring company.  And you can’t just use them to check whether your teens lied about where they would be, because activating the chip automatically involves notifying authorities. 

And I’m not sure that tracking kids every minute of every day is necessarily a good thing…at least I say that while I know exactly where my kids are (home sick with an ear infection, Girl Scout meeting, bus home from middle school).  But if one of my kids went missing, I’d be on that plane as fast as Isaac Daniel was.   If I had the resources of a large business on my side, I’d use them to keep kids safe in a heartbeat. 

So, the thought of all of us having tracking chips in our shoes is pretty creepy, but the thought of our kids being safe…that’s pretty appealing.