AIBU to track ds16 location

I would add to this that keeping a good relationship and communication lines with a child of this age is so important.

That means you listen to his point of view. He doesn't want to be tracked, so what can he do to alleviate OP's fears? Telling her where he is going and with who and letting her know if he will be late back shows responsibility.

my children are beyond teen years now, but their friends who had the strictest and most controlling parents were the ones who became accomplished in lying, leaving their phones at friends' houses and having a second PAYG phone so that their parents didn't know what they were doing despite them ostensibly following the rules. This makes them less safe.

If course it’s your decision, your DS is under 18 so you could force him.

You can force him to have a tracker on his phone. You can't force him to carry his phone with him at all times. A moderately resourceful 16 yo - or even a younger teenager - will easily get around that.

I’m going to pick on this comment not because it is rude and wrong (although it is both) but because it’s indicative of a very common misconception on MN and in the UK more broadly.

Crime, including violent crime, in the UK is just about the lowest it has ever been. Some things are increasing because of better reporting or definitions (a lot of what we now rightly classify as domestic abuse would have gone unreported 30 years ago). But most outside-the-home crimes, including violent crimes, are lower than when most of us were children. Sometimes much lower. Deaths on the roads are also lower than a generation ago.

And yet parents on MN almost always think that the world is more dangerous than when they were young, and use this as a reason to not give their children the same freedoms they themselves enjoyed. Or they justify intrusive technology like trackers because “the world has changed”, which is shorthand for “I think the world is riskier but I’m not sure exactly how.”

The world is not riskier then when you were young. If you live in the UK it’s almost certainly safer. This is also true in most of the rest of the world.

If you want to give your children much more restricted and intrusive childhoods than you yourself enjoyed, that’s up to you. When they’re adults, your children might or might not thank you for it. But ask yourself whether it’s less about quantifiable risks, and more about your personal anxiety.

https://policinginsight.com/feature/analysis/most-crime-has-fallen-by-90-in-30-years-so-why-does-the-public-think-its-increased/

You are probably correct about my intelligence, however crime has definitely decreased over recent decades

They can’t see that you’re ‘safe’ at all.
All they can see is where your phone is. It tells them nothing about you, and how safe or otherwise you might be.

At 16 the legal presumption is he has mental capacity to make his own decisions even foolish ones. No parent should be tracking a 16 year old without consent unless they have intellectual disability. I agree it normalises coercive control and abuse and a breach of privacy. Legally he can leave home at 16 so you don’t have any rights over him.

Tracker won't do anything to keep him safe. If he's so opposed then he will just find a way to mislead you. A friend was so reassured that her son 's tracker showed he was in city A , until she realised he was actually at his father's at city B. He just used another phone and avoided the tracker for two days. (His mate in city A just had the phone in his bag to give the illusion of having that phone with him). Thevex just said "he's perfectly safe, he doesn't want or need tracking '.

I don't track DD13 or DS15. I feel like I need them to know that I trust them. I give them freedom and I ask them for updates if they're in town with friends. We have shared location on Whatsapp before if trying to find each other but tbh being able to message to say "What time will you be back?" Is just nicer. It starts a conversation and I like to take every opportunity to communicate with my teens.

I don't want permission to follow a dot on a screen either, because there isn't consideration or thought in that. I want my kids to be responsible and let people know where they are and where they're going, what time they're to be expected home etc. That's a good habit to develop. They're good at it. I also think they appreciate the trust I give them and know that if I have reason to remove that then I'll need a rethink.

Vast majority of kids and young adults share their locations on snap maps.

it’s worth having a chat about restricting it to trusted/known contacts only. Lots unknowingly share their location with every single contact- guys they meet in a bar that they swap usernames with for example.

you can set the location so only contacts you allow can see it.

more than once I’ve taken dc to meet a mate, to get lost and used snap maps to get them to the right place…

Perfectly reasonable, especially these days.

Tracking wasn’t availability in the dark ages.
Even if it was we wouldn’t have used it on our DC, now in their 30s.
If course it’s your decision, your DS is under 18 so you could force him. Why not trust him till you know you can’t. He has to go out into the World at sometime without you spying on him.

DD and her friend (both 18) have had each other on tracking apps for a few years but neither set of parents have direct access. There's an agreement that friend will supply details if we have concerns and cannot contact DD and vice versa for friend's parents. We have thankfully never needed it but now they're at university in 2 different cities they like to know they can still look out for each other.
Would a set up like that work?

No, they aren’t “in the habit of losing things”

generally they take very good care of their stuff. Beeping their phone at home is just a quicker way to find it- I do it all the time, put my phone down somewhere, get distracted and forget where. I often wish I could beep my glasses and car keys as well! But the phone isn’t “lost”, it’s in the house somewhere, it’s just taking seconds to find it vs half an hour of searching every room.

i’ve never had to replace anything because they’ve been careless with it. Sometimes shit happens, phone falls out a bag, they’re in a rush and leave it in a locker at the gym. That’s got to be three or four times though over 10 years for two kids, which I don’t think is unreasonable.

sharing their device location with me just makes it easier. They could track it on their laptops or by logging into iCloud on my phone, so if they were in the habit of losing devices they could be located without me having the tracking.

tech is also my job. So they are careful with their phones as they think I have ways of getting into their phones and/or seeing what they’re up to without needing permission 😂. I don’t, obviously, but they don’t believe me 😂

Never entered my head to track their phones. Don't see the need even weirder when adults do it.

Mine are fine with it for a number of reasons.
mainly they’re always putting their phone down and forgetting where. “Muuum, beep my phone” is a common refrain. Also the reassurance if it’s lost- we’ve recovered a few phones by tracking them to a friends car, the gym, and various other places

See that is a perfect example. Your kids are in the habit of losing things, likely expensive and rather than there being any consequences/lessons learned mummy comes to to the rescue, every time.

I'm really glad I grew up in an age where my parents didn't live up my arse and I was allowed a bit of freedom in my teens. I find all this 24/7 location sharing and knowing where everyone is and needing people to be socially available to you 24/7 shite really dystopian and depressing. And we wonder why the younger generations are entering the world helpless and clueless.

It's also nonsense that it's for their "safety". If they wanted to disappear they'd ditch the phone, people have been doing it since mobiles became a thing because even without trackers they ping their location periodically. If they got kidnapped the first thing said kidnappers would do is chuck the phone off a bridge. It's about control.

Mine are fine with it for a number of reasons.

mainly they’re always putting their phone down and forgetting where. “Muuum, beep my phone” is a common refrain. Also the reassurance if it’s lost- we’ve recovered a few phones by tracking them to a friends car, the gym, and various other places.

second they prefer the freedom of not having to check in. When we discussed it I said they were absolutely free to remove themselves, but I would expect courtesy contact like a text when they arrive places, or change plans, are delayed etc so I don’t worry. They chose to keep the tracking then they don’t have to worry about letting me know they’re staying late at x’s, or are stopping somewhere after school. Especially as they have the privilege now of pretty much free use of my car whenever they want.

they can track me because I don’t live an interesting enough life for it to matter 😂

YABU. I absolutely don't believe in tracking, unless perhaps you're going on a solo hike or something. I have never tracked my child and he had a lot of freedom. He's almost 18 now and so sensible I'm not sure he's mine! He keeps in touch with no prompting.
I think tracking your child is detrimental to their well being actually, your kids might be 'fine' with it but that's because they've been raised to believe it's normal.
Surely you know by how you've raised your teen whether you can trust them to keep their self safe or not? Do you have a good relationship?

DS 16 is on the Google family link which tracks. I can't even think of a time I've actually used it to track him, but it was a relief to have it when he was mugged and I could share with the police the location of the phone.

Yonger teen it was useful when her friend from school picked up her phone by mistake and she thought someone had stolen it. Big relief to track it to friends house and just send a text to the mum to ask if we could pop round to get it.

I probably would check if either of them were not home when they said they would be, just in case.

But it's very much a trust thing. They've both had the Google family app since they first got a phone and are fully aware I'm not keeping tabs on them. It's just an extra in case we need it. They trust me not to be overzealous. And I trust them to be where they say they are.

He's not happy with it, so you don't do it.
If other people have family members that are happy, then that's a different scenario.

As others have said, it won't keep him safe - in fact it may make him less safe as he'll "accidentally" leave his phone behind if he thinks you are checking up on him. This is nothing to do with him doing anything he doesn't want you to know, but acknowledging he doesn't have to let you know every single aspect of his life.

Normal expectation would be that he tells you where he is, who he is with and when he will be home before he goes out.

My DC ages 15 19 and 22 understand that we pay for the phone so the tracker is on. The adult DC are welcome to pay for their own phones and data contracts.

Similarly they can see where I am.

It's unreasonable if he doesn't want you to do it. I think it's quite weird, this idea of expecting to track people and know their every movement. Especially at the age of 16. It's definitely an invasion of privacy. I've never tracked anyone. My 17 year old son is tracking me though but I'm not tracking him 🤣

This. I pay for dh, adult and teen dc. Mainly because it’s cheap on my contract and we cba to separate it out, and I can afford the £20 a month.

we all share location. But we consent. If someone wanted to stop they can.

he’s 16. He needs to consent. You could force him, but willing to bet he’ll work out how to switch it off or leave his phone behind if he is up to no good. “Oops went to a friends, no signal in their garage/basement…”.

It normalises coercive control. For all these partners tracking each other for 'good' reasons there will also be those using it to control their partners, and make it very difficult for them to leave when their every move is tracked.

Crime rates have fallen, is what a google search is telling me