Do you track your teenager?

[Coffeesndteav]

I have had my dd on the friend finder app. We live about a mile away from her school so being in the park with friends etc it eases my mind.She is 13 next week.

We have had a temper tantrum tonight saying none of her friends parents do this. I am a stalker. We don't trust her. We care too much

Her attitude is very bad at the moment. Wow teens are hard work.

AIBU to track her on the app?

Eventually a time will come where you will have no choice but to trust her.

Why not offer her some allowances on the tracking? So no tracking mid week provided she is going to pre agreed places (and texts if she moves on to a new place). Track on weekends.

Then, provided she earns your trust by keeping you updated/coming home on time etc, she can lose the weekend tracking by an agreed age.

Yes, but equally Ds can track me too. He’s lost his phone & iPad a few times including leaving it on a bus and we’ve been able to trace it because of find my iPhone.

No, I don't think this is reasonable behaviour, unless she has given you a reason to mistrust her. We used to ask our DCs to send a check-in text every 3 hours or so when they were this age and phone had to be on and not on silent in case we needed to contact them. How does tracking make you feel better?

If she were happy for you to track her, and some kids might be, that would be fine. If she is not though then it is an invasion of privacy and even 13 year olds are entitled to privacy. Worth considering that up until a few years ago, people managed to parent their children perfectly well without tracking apps. Just because technology enables you to do something, doesn't mean you have a right or need to do so.

I’ve never done it, my daughter is 13. I trust her and always make sure her phone is charged and she has money/bank card.

I work with teenagers and their parents and many of the families I work with so this.

I don’t think this seems like a good idea. Much better to develop that trust although I appreciate the temptation.

Yes. They don't know though as they’d deactivate it. I knew they weren’t at school one afternoon a few weeks back and that they were in town.

My friend has all of her kids and her husband on hers, and her mum.

I track my DC if they are out. I make sure they’ve got to where they say they are going and then I check to see if they are making their way home when they should be. At least then if they forget to tell me they have arrived safely then I’m not worrying and waiting for their txt. My DC haven’t complained but I’d talk about it if they did have issues with it.

WTF OP??? This is abusive and controlling. You may think you’re doing no harm but this will come back to bite you. How would you feel if someone was tracking YOUR every move?
Honestly, stop, or your DD will likely resent you. Or turn off her location services. This is plain wrong and YABVU.

NotIncandescentWithRage Why does she need to do this with her h and her mum?

I couldn’t care less where mine were!

Dh put one of those tracking apps on our phones...its a free one so fairly crap

No one seems to have a problem with it and obviously if they did they could delete the app

Having said that i think ds2 may have deleted his

I track my 14yo ds. He's betrayed my trust a couple of times and I worry about him going out. This way I know where he is and I'm not on his back all of the time.

She is potentially up to something. Otherwise why would she worry about it. All my kids have the tracker. It's for their safety. They can equally track me so they can see how close I am when they need me. In my opinion they only have a phone for their safety so the tracker stays

NotShiny What do you think might happen to them?

"I couldn’t care less where mine were!"

What an awful thing to say.

I have a 12yo and a 13yo. I’ve never done this.

@NotShiny

"I couldn’t care less where mine were!"

What an awful thing to say.

Not awful, @NotShiny just respects her family’s privacy and understands boundaries.

@Nicknacky

NotIncandescentWithRage Why does she need to do this with her h and her mum?

I couldn’t care less where mine were!

I don’t know!! I’m not sure if it’s a trust thing with her husband but her mum never goes out!!

No way. It's not even that I trust them to go where they say they're going, it's because I remember very well what it was like to be a teenager. They need to learn those life lessons for themselves, the same way we did. Sometimes that's going to need to include doing stuff I might not approve of, but I trust them not to do anything stupid and know that if they do that they can call me to come pick them up, no questions asked...okay, maybe a few.

NotShiny Why is that a awful thing to say about my husband and my mum? (although I do always know where she is)They are (or were) perfectly capable adults who don’t need followed online.

My DD is 13 and I track her phone. It's for my own peace of mind incase something happens to her, not because I don't trust her.
Sit down with your DD and tell her that you do it because you care and it eases your mind. You want to make sure she's safe.
Having a tracking app also could be useful if the phone gets lost.

I've never felt the need to track them.

Nicknacky...anything, anything at all. I've had instances where I've had frantic calls off them and I've had to go and pick them up and the app has been invaluable..I've been able to find them and theyve been able to see how far away I was. And times when weve split up shopping and they can find me and me them...and phones getting left by mistake and we've been able to find them. And when wondering where they are when they should be home.