Hi, I’m Jason. I’m a product expert at Intertel’s Spy Store. As a father of four, I’m naturally drawn to any product or technology that helps keep our kids safer or helps mitigate the risks that put our kids in danger.

With a 15 year age gap between my youngest and my eldest, and with all four of my “babies” at different schools, each of my kids is exposed to a different range of threats. As parents we’re often fighting a battle on multiple fronts. Good-cop-bad-cop. We need to allow our children enough freedom to grow yet maintain enough control to steer them out of harms way. We need to respect their privacy and let them learn from their mistakes yet we need to know what is going on in their lives and intervene when they stray too far. That is where technology comes in. It is a force multiplier that enables us to see what is happening when we’re not around, and to truly understand the pressures, risks and hazards that they face on a daily basis.

The Threat Continuum

As our kids get older, and as they pass through the various stages in their development, they become aware of, and learn to cope with, the dangers and threats in their world. At infancy we physically shield them from those things in their immediate environment that can do them harm. We childproof our house, keep them strapped in their car seat, keep cleaning chemicals and medicines out of reach, and make sure that the pool is inaccessible. As they get a little older, we’re able to explain some of these dangers to them, show them how to be safer, and then we need to trust them not to stick their fingers into the plug socket, take a sip of the drain cleaner or swallow a handful of mommy’s pills. The older they get the more self-reliant they become, and many of their childhood dangers are often taken for granted. The thing is that these dangers never go away, but with proper handling of these issues, our kids should instinctively know to turn the power off before messing with electrical wiring, or that taking unknown medicines or drugs is very risky. Enter the teen years, peer pressure and first “love”. The desire to fit in and be accepted as a peer leads kids to do outrageous things. Showing off or doing something careless to impress someone they fancy, or putting themselves in harms way to steal some alone-time with their new flame can have tragic consequences. When their relationships fail or they become the target of jealousy or are singled out because they’re different then they’re potentially at risk of themselves. Teenage suicide is a real and tragic reality.