I don’t even have a grandchild, yet I find myself involved in the controversy of whether parents should arm their young children with miniature sensing devices in order to keep track of them just in case they wander off in supermarkets, department stores, or even playgrounds. A story appeared in today’s New York Times by Anne Eisenberg about the introduction of a watch from Filip Technologies that tracks the location of a young child and lets him or her easily communicate with just the push of a bottom.

Surprisingly, many of the therapists Eisenberg interviewed for the story gave somewhat negative reviews of the Filip product and others like it because they felt children need to learn problem-solving skills and learn to manage stress. That means if they get lost they should experience fear and independence.

That’s all fine and good, but what about the distraught parents? Twenty-seven years ago, I lost Whitney in a Caldor’s in Riverhead. She was four at the time. I thought she was at my side, but she had wandered around the bend and proceeded to sit down on the floor. I immediately started to call her name and stood on my tippy toes to find her. No answer. In three seconds I imagined I had lost her forever, and my whole body started to shake. Of course, once I started running up and down the aisles, I spotted her on the floor. Had I bent down, rather than stood on my toes, I may have seen her through the racks of clothes. To this day I have no idea why she didn’t answer me.

I met up with a very well-known international physiatrist this morning at a friend’s brunch. I told him about the story in The Times as well as about my experience with Whitney. He had a different opinion than the ones you will read in the story. I didn’t ask permission to quote him so I am leaving out his name. “I don’t see anything wrong with using a gadget to locate a child, but let’s really evaluate the facts. The chances of losing a child is not very likely, so the GPS monitoring solution is a little extreme. What’s more, a gadget shouldn’t really replace good parenting skills. No harm, either way.”

If I had to do it all over again, I would have had ten alarms on Whitney. I am really curious about your opinion. To be clear, here’s the question: Is it better to teach young children independence by letting them experience fear, or to buy one of the various GPS monitoring devices as a safety precaution?