A judge denied bond Monday for a man accused of abducting and assaulting a 14-year-old girl and holding her in an underground bunker for more than a week before she was able to send a text message to her mother.
Texting, e-mail, cell phones. All of these things are just communications channels, neither inherently good nor inherently evil, but rather, how they are used determines their worth.
Text messaging saved her life!
In this case, text messaging saved a girl from living hell and probably murder.
I weary of people complaining about kids texting or chatting or IM'ing. Kids are just talking for goodness sakes! That's what kids do.
What if Mama didn't know how to text?
It is time for adults to listen and join in. Thank goodness the mother knew how to read the text message, because I know many parents that do not.
The cost of being unable to text her daughter would have cost this mother her most precious gift, her daughter.
It is time for us parents to move online and into technology and make it part of our lives so we can be a part of our children's lives. Stop fighting the rip tide and swim with it!
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2 comments
Whilst I agree that in this case there was a happy ending, I have to say that this case appears to be the exception rather than the rule. A lot of parents nowadays seem to think that their child is safe because he/she has a mobile phone, and a lot of kids feel this as well… but the truth is often that the parents are using the phone as an excuse for poor parenting. They are abnegating their parental duty-of-care to the latest Sony-Ericson phone, and that is a dangerous path to start down.
The more ways a parent can connect with their child the better. I text my husband to tell him I love him. When they get a cell phone, I will text my children. Our family calendar texts us to remind us of our calendar the night before.
I have always found that more communication is always better, not worse. As I stated in my post, all communications methods can be used for good or for evil, however, the communications method in itself is not inherently either.
Parents can obviously use cell phones in good or bad ways. It is dangerous to label technology as evil and that is what we do far to much of. It is the behaviors, as you point out, that are the problem. It is not, however, the technology.
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