“feed this cycle of anxiety in families, because the parents never feel calm and safe and that things are okay, and that bleeds down to the kids.”
It is messed up that we are living in some of the safest times in human history, and yet due to having so much access to knowledge about bad things, we are more worried than ever. Kids being independent has been snuffed out in a couple generations. My kid doesn’t enjoy 5% of the autonomy I had as a kid. And she lives in a really nice area.
But I see her mom share a post every time someone is at Target and sees some guy get into a van who she was sure was trying to kidnap someone. And since we are connected so well, as story 2000 miles away we never would have heard of can now be on ones news feed. It just feeds the fear monster. Even worse, it also affects our perception of the people around us negatively.
And like the post said - the parent anxiety bleed into the kid. I’ve asked the kiddo if she get anxious or worried about this and things like health stuff (her mom automatically goes to the worst case scenario. I don’t know how many times she has worried she has NF, when some of the to genetics experts in the country have told her it would be impossible for it to be passed down to her.) Fortunately it doesn’t seem to be effecting her… but I still worry about it
Yes, I have been a teenager and regretted a lot of my choices. I also disliked the bad things I was forced into (summer camp facial recognition) a lot more than the bad things I chose for bad reasons (Instagram and the like). My point was less that there choice means what the social media companies do is okay and more that the use of those social media companies doesn’t make a far sleazier application okay.
Summer camp was often the place where kids first learned some independence. A week without mom or dad, and just some older kids trying to tell you what to do. You got to learn about homesickness, about being away from the safety net of your bedroom, about hanging out with new friends, and occasionally about the opposite sex.
The idea wasn’t to send kids off to a monitored environment, it was to send kids to a safe environment.
This is exactly the wrong thing to look for in a summer camp.
it’s a dedicated app at our school. But we don’t receive pics of any kid but ours- if she isn’t in the picture, we don’t receive it. You have to sign up and the school has to approve your access. So, some precautions, at least.
I like seeing her having fun at random intervals through the day. Or seeing that she has taken the lessons of her feline brethren and is now constructing boxes instead of houses out of the giant lincoln logs or insisting that the baskets are for sitting in not toy storage. If I had a kid who was less happy- the pictures might be more anxiety inducing. If she was older or disliked having her picture taken- then we might have a problem. Though her teachers are good about asking if she wants her picture taken.
Now- summer camp? Ergh. Not so sure. Maybe a few pics a week or one a day so I have something to tell my paranoia “Yes SHE IS ALIVE.” The kids probably find it really annoying- at the very least, it would have a tendency to take them out of the moment. By the time a kid is old enough to go to summer camp, they need to be exploring more of the world without their parents looking over their shoulder. Learning to make good decisions in an environment where they can make bad ones, but if they do, the consequences aren’t catastrophic. I think this surveillance-mode at the camp would be a big damper on that.
About to send my kid off to camp. Kid-free time is a definite selling point for us, it’s like the frosting on a cupcake of self-reliance and personal growth for my kid.
Agreed. And not letting them make mistakes and reap the consequences when young results in huge problems for the kid and everyone around them as soon as they move out. I’ve heard about parents of teenagers, aged 17 even, whose parents claim they have good kids but still monitor all activity on their phones using stalkerware. Location, messages, phone calls, browsing history. As in, they get an alert if the kid is in a vehicle moving over the speed limit or go outside the geofencing. In an article I read (https://www.wired.com/story/life360-location-tracking-families/?verso=true) there was a 21 year old whose parents still routinely checked on her location. And yeah, all but one kid interviewed said they lied to their parents as a result. Super creepy.
I guess these camp surveillance programs are for those parents. It’s selfish, but I’m hoping that by the time my kid is older, this trend of constantly monitoring kids has let up. I don’t want her to have to be friends with kids who don’t have the freedom to be kids. I also would love to see these companies get nailed for the privacy violations they commit.
There are really two topics presented in this story: camps using tools like Bunk1 to share photos with parents, and Bunk1 “improving” the experience with facial recognition. When my son went to camp 6 years ago, the camp used Bunk1 to share photos with parents, but they didn’t try to identify specific kids - you could just see lots of happy kids having fun, and occasionally you would spot your kid. Our kids never went to daycare, so sending them to camp was a big deal for us. The photos were really nice to see. Also, the two-week camp had a no-phoning home rule, within reason, based on the idea that a homesick kid will only feel worse after talking to mom. I think the photos helped them enforce this rule with parents: “if you are worried about your kid, or just want to know what’s happening, check the photos”. At the time, we really appreciated the photos and felt that Bunk1 took appropriate steps to protect the privacy of campers. Facial recognition crosses a BIG red line in my opinion. I’m really surprised that this passes muster for COPPA.
As a gen Y i remember the days after the vacation when friends and family gathered near one of these devices and forced to watch all the photos made during the vacation. Even the ugly ones on the out of focus one.
I think that should be a more interesting thing to do to give the kid a camera and a couple of 135 rolls.
Then they should select the 10 or 12 best photos of the vacation and show them and only them to friend and parents. OR if 135 film is too old, they could do the same thing with a digital camera, but then print on paper the 12 best photos.
Because these will become a souvenir of the camp, instead watching a bunch of photos now isn’t interesting and these image will be forgotten.
I would like to think I would be a kid that constantly walked around with at least one middle finger on display at all times, but in reality I was the kind of kid that would do everything in my power to avoid going to camp at all.
And she lives in a really nice area.
