Tracker for child - School trip

[StarStripeMama]

Hello my 4 year old is going on their first school trip next week and it’s giving me major anxiety. I know they will be totally fine but it’s an hour away and an all day trip. Can anyone recommend a gps tracker that I can see on my phone, a watch or something for her shoe? I don’t want to sound crazy but it would make me feel better. It won’t be for school but just any school trips? Thanks :-)

I cannot see how this will make you feel any better . If I was in your shoes and had a tracker on my child I would be tempted to keep looking at it and wondering what the information meant.
This will be the first of many letting go experiences and imo they get more worrying and not less as little four and five year olds have plenty of supervision and less inclination to rebel.
Think about what you are actually worried about and how likely it is to happen. Then think about how a tracker is likely to help.
When you can , get some help to manage these feelings.

Oh the irony of the teacher being distracted from looking after the children to answer calls about trackers 😀Or maybe they take a spare teacher dedicated to manning the line for gps snafus

Oh the irony of the teacher being distracted from looking after the children to answer calls about trackers 😀Or maybe they take a spare teacher dedicated to manning the line for gps snafus

Well exactly.

'Sorry Jane was kidnapped, I was on the phone to Sandra's mother about her tracker.'

And as if a school is going to ring the teacher on a trip to say that a parent is concerned about their child because of a tracker.

Have you ever had CBT for anxiety? It teaches you how to sit with the pain and stress for a while and then revisit the feeling and the causes behind it in designated time slots during the day.
The one thing it teaches you never to do is to find a way to self soothe by "checking" behaviour - in this case, using a tracker. It makes you feel better in the short term but in the long term makes your anxiety much worse and the threshold for what calms you goes up and up and up.
You need to face the anxiety, not alter your behaviour towards your child.
Remember that while she's at school she's completely the responsibility of those looking after her - not you. If anything goes wrong it is not your fault. And, of course, it won't go wrong because that safeguarding responsibility is taken extremely seriously.
To put it one way: she's actually probably safer there than with you because of the level of preparation and planning that has gone into safeguarding her on a school trip. More than you ever do as a parent in your own home.

So many responses from people who have clearly never used an AirTag. It’s not quite as simple as “popping one in her pocket”. They rely on the GPS of other devices, which will sporadically update its location if it feels like it, while also alerting the teachers and helpers that an AirTag is following them. Absolute hysteria anyway. OP won’t know if her kid has wandered off unless she’s tracking the whole group too. Better idea to just get a grip.

But tragedies happen that you can't predict or prevent - and what if your retrospective sorrow comes from nurturing a child with such significant anxiety that they develop acrophobia?
It's an extreme example, but my point is that spending all your trying to stop bad things happen then paradoxically you WILL make a very bad thing happen: your short life will be sucked of its joy.

It should be illegal to track another person without their explicit informed consent. No wonder there’s a mental health crisis in young people, all this tracking is just driving paranoia and obsession with bad events. And OP, your anxiety will be affecting your kid on some level-even if not evident now. Please get some professional help

I think it's interesting that so many people have used the word 'safe' in relation to trackers, but aren't able to actually explain how they make the child any safer, particularly in the case of a school trip. I think one of the issues with trackers is that they can lull parents into a false sense of security. A tracker isn't going to stop anything bad happening to your child.

Another important point is that the tracker is not the child! You put an AirTag in their coat and they take their coat off and leave it somewhere. You put one in their bag and it gets left on the bus/in a cloakroom. Cue parents panicking that the tracker is showing their child somewhere they're not meant to be! Or the child does actually wander off but the parent is oblivious because the bag/coat is where it's meant to be!

Ex reception teacher here. Please don’t start down this route…much better to learn to entrust her to the professionals whose job it is to keep her safe than to embark on an ever-increasing programme of supervision. Once you start this you will need more and more to satisfy your anxiety and that won’t be good for your child in the long run.

You say that this is coming from a place of care and I completely believe you. Of course you want your child to be safe and happy on the trip. The thing is it’s also coming from a place of anxiety and I think it will help you both in the longer term if you address that. If you think about it, what extra protection will a tracker actually give your child? All it will tell you is where she is at any given time. It won’t tell you who she’s with, why she’s in that place at that time or whether she’s happy. You will have to just trust that she’s in the right place at the right time enjoying herself.

It may help you to know what preparations teachers make when embarking on a school trip so here you go:
A couple of months (or more) before the proposed trip I would put in a proposal to the head of school saying where I wanted to take the children and for what educational purpose, method of transport we would use and how many adults we would need to take. She would then say yes or no to the trip. Then I’d have to visit the place in my own time to risk assess the venue. If it was somewhere like a castle or a zoo, I’d spend a couple of hours there, with a colleague, walking through everything we’d do from where the coach would drop us off to everything we’d do, including seeing where we’d have lunch etc etc. We’d make a note of ANY potential risks for the risk assessment. If it was somewhere like a city visit we’d do exactly the same. Then a trip proposal would have to be submitted to County, with all risk assessments attached, including any special arrangements for individual children (anyone with medical needs, SEN needs or flight risk). A list of all adults, including volunteer helpers would go on that form to County. They would come back to say yes or no to the trip. Before the trip we would allocate all children to a specific adult (usually groups of 4, never more than 6). On the day, all volunteers would have a briefing, including a run through the risk assessment and instructions in what to do in an emergency. Children had a briefing and were given a high viz vest and lanyard with emergency contact details for the school on there with instructions not to take them off during the trip. They would be counted on to the coach, counted again when we’re all seated on the coach, then counted again when we got off the coach and at any transition during the day. We would spend the whole day checking everyone was with us doing what they should be doing. Honestly, it was exhausting but it was very, very safe.

If you put a tracker in her coat or bag there’s every chance it will be left on the coach anyway, or taken straight to where they will be having lunch and left for safekeeping. I used to try to avoid having my children carry around their lunch all morning because it gets in their way and after a while it feels heavy for them. So you won’t be tracking her anyway in that case.
I’ve sometimes had anxious parents talk to me about the trip and I was always happy to chat them through it. I’d much rather spend some time answering specific worries than for everyone to be in a state in the morning of the trip, or worse for a child not to be allowed to go because mum was worried (which did sadly happen on one occasion).

I’d honestly try to get a handle on this now. If you need to track your child for ‘peace of mind’ then you should probably accept that your anxiety levels are too high and you need some help to get that down to a more manageable level. If you don’t your DD is eventually going to pick up on it and will start to think that she IS in an unsafe situation. Children thrive when they are well supported to try new things and take risks. It actually guards their MH and builds resilience for later life.
Go and talk to her teacher, you won’t be the only one and perhaps also get some support for your anxiety. She’s got years ahead of her of exciting possibilities and experiences and you don’t want to be worrying about her every time she’s out of sight. Good luck!

I actually don't think it's normal to feel anxious about a child going on a school trip. I've been slightly anxious the first time my children started going out alone, but it never occurred to me to worry about them going outside their schools with their entire class and all their teachers.

I literally said the tracker wouldn't help in this situation as she was still in the general area BUT should she have been taken by someone, or wondered off on her own, then it would have come into play.

Well my friend has a tracker on her 28 year old dd. She (friend) has huge anxiety over her only child, who has lived away from home at Uni, and for work, but is now (mostly) back at home. She (DF) tracks her (DD) when she's driving, when she's out in the evening, when she's away for work...

I've told her that this is just feeding her anxiety, that my own dc would never speak to me again if I suggested it to them. And anyway, what can she do from her home if she sees DD is stopped on the M3? Would she panic that she's in an accident, rather than just stopped in traffic? Or at a service station? DF said she'd have to phone her to find out - but she (DD) is driving? So can't answer? So she DF can't do anything other than panic. And turn herself inside out worrying - why? Why do that to yourself? And to DD?

IT's nuts, and so damaging, I think.

Yes it would. But the chances of a child being abducted whilst on a school trip are so minuscule that it would be almost unheard of. Or wandering off come to that. I’ve never heard of it, have you? They are SO heavily supervised on a school trip, the adults barely take their eyes off their own group of children.

You might say that even for a minuscule chance and ‘peace of mind’ it’s still worth it, but is it? Are we really sure that there are no downsides at all to tracking a well supervised reception child on a school trip? Starting with the child - what does it convey to them that a parent is so concerned about their safety whilst they’re out that they need to track them? How will that feel when they’re older? Will they learn the skills and behaviours necessary to independent thinking and living as they grow or will they just rely on the fact that mum knows it all and will fish me out of danger whatever I’m doing? What about the parent? Does trying to mitigate against any anxious thoughts really support mental health or make it worse? Wouldn’t it be better to recognise that this actually isn’t a real and present danger and that pandering to that feeling rather than resisting it only reinforces it and perpetuates the anxiety?

I’m really not trying to dismiss genuine feelings of anxiety, I’ve struggled plenty with it myself over the years but I have made improvements when I’ve dug in, recognised that the thing that’s making me anxious can’t go away and sat with it rather than trying to remove it.

To me the downsides of this massively outweigh the supposed benefits. This sort of monitoring is not without long term consequences.

Two kids a week on average go missing/lost from nursery or while on school trips, so rare, but not unheard of.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyxx511l695o

Also, someone has previously FOI-d this for EYFS and KS1 in 2017 where it says schools are under no obligation to report this to the DfE (may have changed since, I don't know).

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/howmanyychildrenareetemporaril

I absolutely love when people get so up tight about their point that when someone points out alternatives they start name calling and finger pointing. It's so unbelievably childish.

We have different opinions.

I like to put in any extra precautions that might keep my child safe, if you don't want to then great. You do you

How do they make your child safe?

In what specific way do they make a difference?

Other than give you the illusion of control and safety.

@LittleBearPad I have explained many times how I FEEL they would help keep my child safe in certain circumstances, and explained how they could help my child if they were to get into trouble.

Its not black and white, and they aren't a magic solution to keeping children completely safe. They simply help reduce risks.

Can’t you offer to help with the trip? Then you can keep an eye on your child.

It's this kind of logic that's lead to DM telling me that I should give up running alone.
I'm in my 40s FFS.
I just about managed not to swear at such stupidity.

Trust is important as children grow up. You have to trust their teachers and their leaders and eventually them. 4 may seem very young, but you're not so many years from them doing things themselves. At 8, local Brownies and Cubs are free-range within a closed Scout/Guide camp (well populated by staff/ leaders). By the end of junior school it's normal for children to make their own way to/ from school if it's a local walk. And the first stages are trusting other adults to look after them.

Putting emergency contact information on them is useful if there is an emergency. My 11yo runs solo at parkrun and he wears the parkrun wristband for a barcode as it also has his asthma info and my phone number on it if he does have difficulties before I catch him up.

Tracking is not useful because there is far more chance of it giving false information that exacerbates the anxiety than useful information. At some point you have to detach and adding a stage of weaning off tracking is not helpful and it's better not to start it.

I’ve been a parent helper and a staff member on these trips. Each child at that age is in a group of between 4-6 with a designated adult. All adults will have a list of their charges, and they will be relentlessly counting all day, in between pointing out interesting things, and avoiding pigeons. The trip, if it’s a local one, will probably be one that is undertaken every year, and will inevitably be timetabled to the minute and will run with a degree of precision that the army would be proud of.

Check the school’s social media footprint. My son’s school used to post wee updates when there were trips “y6 have arrived at Alton Towers and are preparing to conquer the coasters!” or “EYFS are loving the city farm today, and their bunny hops and duck waddles are really coming along!” type things. Being able to see those things may help and aren’t invasive.

Good luck with working on the anxiety. It isn’t easy, but it is worth it.