Con

Pro

Kate Figes Mother of two and author of Terrible Teens: What Every Parent Needs to Know

I think it is absolutely ghastly. It's treating children like dogs - chipping them so you can lay claim to them. This is about fear; this is about parents being afraid to give their children freedom. Our children are not possessions or objects - they are individual young people who are growing up very quickly. Safety is nothing to do with microchips and tracking devices. The more you prepare children for the risks of the real world, the better they will deal with them.

My 13-year-old daughter has just gone out to meet friends and go to the movies. I know where she is going and when she is coming back. She has a mobile on her, so she can get in touch if she needs to. But actually, she's out there as a 13-year-old on her own and she has to do that. She has to explore. Chipping her is not going to make her more responsible or more safe. A child's sense of safety comes from their own internal warning systems and the programming they have received from you as an adult. There is no substitute for good parenting.

Pauline Nolan Mother of 15-year-old Dan who went missing on January 1 this year after going fishing with friends in Hamble, near Southampton

I saw the tracker implant on television on Monday night and thought it was a fantastic idea. I wish Dan had had a chip on him, because the chances are we would know where he was now. Dan is the eldest of five, and having gone through this with him, I would seriously consider having my other children fitted with a chip. You would have to sit down and discuss it. It's not something a parent can force on a child. You would have to come to an agreement as to when a child could have his privacy back, but I would definitely consider it.

Before Dan went missing, I probably would have thought a tracking device was a good idea, but of no use to us because I thought it would never happen to us; I thought I would always know where my children were. Nobody ever, ever, thinks they will be in this situation, but it can happen to anybody.