There are a lot of scary stories out there about teens and cell phones, so we thought we would share an uplifting story this week.
A 17 year-old from Glendora, CA worked for two years to get a Porsche from Craigslist. He started with just trying to sell a cellular telephone. With patience and a knack for bartering, this teen worked his way up to a Porsche. The whole story is found at this link.
Of course, safety is key at TeenCellSafety.org, so we should point out that parents should closely monitor what their teens do on the Internet and with their cell phones. However, it’s very nice to see that some teens are putting good use to their cell phones, as opposed to putting up embarrassing or illegal pictures or becoming dangers on the road.
Please share your stories of positivity and pride in your teens. We want to hear them.
Many of us have heard the heart-wrenching plight of Missey and Greg Smith. After their teen daughter was abducted, they pleaded with Verizon Wireless to release the location of their daughter’s cell phone data (which can be tracked from its wireless signal) to aid authorities in their daughter’s search. Verizon Wireless required a subpoena before complying because of potential privacy liability. Reports state that the Smith’s daughter was found within about 45 minutes after the release of the data. Unfortunately, authorities were too late, and the Smith’s daughter was the victim of a homicide. You can read more at this link from http://www.kare11.com.
The Smiths have now helped sponser a bill named for their daughter that would require cell phone providers to comply with law enforcement authorities in any investigation of this sort. According to the above article,
The Kelsey Smith Act would require cell phone companies to provide tracking data to law enforcement agencies in a timely manner when a phone customer is in danger. The language in current federal law makes such help optional.
There’s no question that laws like the Kelsey Smith Act are indeed needed and beneficial. As the article states, sometimes minutes make the difference in these cases. However, there are some examples when providing this information to law enforcement without judicial supervision may actually be detrimental.
For instance, what if a teenager is fleeing abusive parents? In that situation, giving authorities the teen’s cell phone location may be detrimental. If legislation like this is not carefully written, it could open the door to unintended consequences of otherwise well intended laws.
For this reason, judicial oversight might need to be considered as a means to ensure that everyone’s rights are being properly represented.
We’re interested in your opinion. There’s a poll following this article. Please participate and give us your thoughts.
The next time you consider taking your teen’s cell phone away as punishment, consider the heartbreaking story of the Michigan family whose teen killed his parents when they tried to take his cell phone away. See this link for some of the details.
With this in mind, parents should consider how closely their teens value their cell phones before they even give them one and set ground rules before starting down the path of cell phone freedom.
For other parents, your teen may acquire their cell phone without your consent or without parental supervision. This becomes an even bigger problem. As always, we counsel guidance as the prime tool in dealing with teens, but that’s not always an acceptable or realistic solution.
Therefore, we welcome any feedback from you. What’s worked for you? What has not? Please tell us, and we’ll post the results in later postings.
TEEN CELL SAFETY 