Tracking teenagers

[glittergrrl]

Am I the only person not doing this or to find this really odd ?

@JustLyra not everyone would know what?

Of course the part about abusive relationships is important. But in a healthy relationship it can be a good thing. It doesn’t have to signal red flags and deep mistrust.

There are many things DH and I use personally that could be abused in an abusive relationship. RING camera or Cctv for example, shares bank accounts etc etc

[quote LuckyAmy1986]**@Bitofachinwag* @fairylightsandwaxmelts*

It was in a retail park so could have been in one of several shops. And his phone was on vibrate only. Anyway it made what could have been a very stressful hour or so quite easy. Plus if someone had walked out the shop with it we could have followed them and taken it back (if we felt brave enough) or given the police the location! Can’t do that without the tracking on. Do you really not see how handy that is?![/quote]
I can see that that was handy. But I am not prepared for my every move to be tracked by Google/ Amazon/ whoever and encourage a surveillance society just because it would be " handy".

I think my DD will be similar to your eldest, @nokidshere. She’s hoping to go to university next year and we’ve already joked that she’ll just show up for Christmas with a big bag of washing! I’m grateful that we have texting to stay in touch nowadays, in the 1990’s I used to phone my parents once a week from a pay phone.😂.

I imagine I’ll text DD once or twice a week to make sure she’s OK and as long as I get a response, I won’t panic.

She’s very focused on doing well, but she also likes to party and I know full well that she’ll be out clubbing, etc. just as I was at her age.🤣

@justanothermanicmonday21

I track my 12 year old son, he's diabetic and we have both agreed to this incase anything was ever to happen to him I would know where he is but tbh I hardly ever use it as he's really good at telling me where he is and keeping in contact. As he gets older we will probably change it as I doubt I'll be tracking him at 16!!

This is completely reasonable and sensible

That's interesting, the airtag thing. So I am thinking, you would only know if you had a rogue air tag following you if you had an iPhone. What about the people that don't have an iPhone? They wouldn't know. I don't have an iPhone and have never heard of airtag before. Sounds well dodge though.

[quote LuckyAmy1986]@JustLyra not everyone would know what?

Of course the part about abusive relationships is important. But in a healthy relationship it can be a good thing. It doesn’t have to signal red flags and deep mistrust.

There are many things DH and I use personally that could be abused in an abusive relationship. RING camera or Cctv for example, shares bank accounts etc etc[/quote]
That you can log in to find a lost phone without having to have it set up all the time

[quote LuckyAmy1986]**@Bitofachinwag* @fairylightsandwaxmelts*

It was in a retail park so could have been in one of several shops. And his phone was on vibrate only. Anyway it made what could have been a very stressful hour or so quite easy. Plus if someone had walked out the shop with it we could have followed them and taken it back (if we felt brave enough) or given the police the location! Can’t do that without the tracking on. Do you really not see how handy that is?![/quote]
I do see that, but IMO it's not worth being tracked 24/7 just in case it might save me an hour of re-tracing my steps at some point.

You can also set up Find My iPhone from your iCloud account - no tracking required.

It pings to tell me they have arrived at school. Since parents are legally responsible for their children's school attendance I think that knowing they are at school when they should be is indeed called good parenting, and just assuming they are there when actually you have no idea where they are would be called 'piss poor parenting

It is not "piss poor parenting " to trust your children to walk to and arrive at school without tracking them.

I don’t track my 16 year old and haven’t done for several years, but find my iPhone etc is very useful when you have two boys who constantly lose phones and who get on buses and trains at the wrong stop / platform and get lost

It is not "piss poor parenting " to trust your children to walk to and arrive at school without tracking them.

No of course it isn't.

There's a lot of mistrust kicking around in this thread.

I trust my kids because I trust I'm raising them well. None of them has proved me wrong yet.

@fairylightsandwaxmelts how would you get into your iCloud if you didn’t have your phone though? If not out with a trusted friend or partner? Also I promise you DH and I are not sitting there tracking each other 24/7…

@Bitofachinwag but we live in a surveillance society anyway! Most doors I walk
Past round here have a ring camera. I don’t really get why people who have an issue with having something like find myself iPhone on and abusive relationships don’t seem to be as concerned about that.

[quote LuckyAmy1986]@fairylightsandwaxmelts how would you get into your iCloud if you didn’t have your phone though? If not out with a trusted friend or partner? Also I promise you DH and I are not sitting there tracking each other 24/7…

@Bitofachinwag but we live in a surveillance society anyway! Most doors I walk
Past round here have a ring camera. I don’t really get why people who have an issue with having something like find myself iPhone on and abusive relationships don’t seem to be as concerned about that.[/quote]
I suppose that depends on how you define a " surveillance society". It could be a lot worse than it is now.

I don't agree with Ring door bells at all. Fine to have cctv, but it's just rude to give my face away to Amazon when I come to visit you!

[quote LuckyAmy1986]@fairylightsandwaxmelts how would you get into your iCloud if you didn’t have your phone though? If not out with a trusted friend or partner? Also I promise you DH and I are not sitting there tracking each other 24/7…

@Bitofachinwag but we live in a surveillance society anyway! Most doors I walk
Past round here have a ring camera. I don’t really get why people who have an issue with having something like find myself iPhone on and abusive relationships don’t seem to be as concerned about that.[/quote]
If you started a thread about that, you might find people are bothered - this one is about tracking.
I agree though, it's another slide towards a society I don't agree with and don't want. Total control over everything, it isn't healthy.

@fairylightsandwaxmelts how would you get into your iCloud if you didn’t have your phone though? If not out with a trusted friend or partner? Also I promise you DH and I are not sitting there tracking each other 24/7

Laptop? Computer? Go home and log in that way? Or just simply re-trace your steps.

I suppose that depends on how you define a " surveillance society". It could be a lot worse than it is now true. I do think it’s just a fact of life now but I understand why you would want to try to keep as much of yourself “off grid” as you can.

I don't agree with Ring door bells at all. Fine to have cctv, but it's just rude to give my face away to Amazon when I come to visit you

I have one and find it, to quote myself “very handy”! However, it’s definitely handing your privacy over to Amazon. They say, as Apple would, that they wouldn’t use the data. But a friend and her husband had a big row by their front door (so ring camera) and shortly after couples therapy books came up on her suggested to buy list. She could have been paranoid about that of course but I thought it was a bit scary!

@DeckardK well fair enough but most threads have moved on a little after this many pages and I joined late!

@fairylightsandwaxmelts you aren’t going to have those things out and about though are you?! I’m just saying it’s easier. No denying that (imo)

@fairylightsandwaxmelts you aren’t going to have those things out and about though are you?! I’m just saying it’s easier. No denying that (imo)

Sure, lots of things are easier but that doesn't mean they're good.

I'm not denying it has it's uses but for me it's not worth being tracked the rest of the time.

@fairylightsandwaxmelts fair enough!

My daughter asked for me to track her so that when she was testing out a walk to a potential new college she felt safe and knew I could find her. It's all about why you do it I think

Nope, I would not have tolerated being tracked when I was a teen. I’d have just removed if from my phone (had they existed!) and my parents would have just had to deal with that.

I wouldn’t track a teen or a partner. It would be the end of a relationship if someone wanted me to have Life360 or similar (and they didn't back down from wanting it).

Awful awful culture.

@Fedupsotired

My daughter asked for me to track her so that when she was testing out a walk to a potential new college she felt safe and knew I could find her. It's all about why you do it I think

I get it, but again it's the bigger picture.

Walking with her first time if she was worried about getting lost etc. maybe, but really I'd be encouraging her to get out there herself. But the main issue is that you are normalising tracking (in fact reinforcing that tracking is useful and normal) and how is that going to help her if she meets a controlling partner etc.

@Fedupsotired

My daughter asked for me to track her so that when she was testing out a walk to a potential new college she felt safe and knew I could find her. It's all about why you do it I think

You could find her phone.

It's very difficult if you work in a school, as you get near hysterical parents phoning up and demanding that you go across the site RIGHT NOW and find their lumping six footer because they switched their phone off to enter the gates and didn't make the check in call immediately beforehand. Despite the fact that it's not registration yet and there is absolutely no way of spotting then out of 250 others who are also at the six foot mark.

And you get exactly the same in the afternoons when they haven't switched their phone back on 30 seconds after the end of the day, whether or not they've actually got off site yet. Like we can do anything about it?

It's ridiculous. If you don't trust your teenager to go to school or come home again (and it's not surprising if they don't particularly want to if that's what they're getting every day), take and collect them yourself. If it's really that dangerous, they're more important than going to work.

@Fedupsotired

My daughter asked for me to track her so that when she was testing out a walk to a potential new college she felt safe and knew I could find her. It's all about why you do it I think

It's scary to me that asking to be tracked is becoming so commonplace.

When I was that age, I'd be told to text when I arrived, or my mum would offer to walk/drive the route with me the first time.

Why can't young people trust themselves to get around without needing to be tracked by their parents?

Well, I'm in my 40s and my mum tracks me! She lives a long way away and she likes to be able to watch my progress when I'm driving to her house. If she sees I'm moving on the map then she knows I haven't had an accident! She also uses it to check whether I'm home before she phones me. I don't see a problem with it tbh. If I had anything to hide from her not likely really then I could turn off the tracking temporarily. I think it's only an issue if you're tracking someone without their consent. I don't track my oldest's phone but I do have tracking on my younger teen's phone. It saved his bacon one time when he got on the wrong bus from school and ended up in a different town. I could see exactly where he was and go and pick him up.