Tracking teenagers

[glittergrrl]

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

I used it when mine were younger but didn't tell them. Caught DD (then 14) staying over at her boyfriends house (she'd lied about a girls sleepover). She never did work out quite how I knew. Scared the shit out of her when I rang her at 11 at night saying "where are you really? "Gave her a hard stare (mums can do that over the phone too) , and she cried and fessed up. I insisted calmly that she carry on staying there and to come home in the morning when we'd talk it over. She spent the night bricking it. She never did that again without permission (which wasn't for another couple of years for boyfriend sleepovers)

I think it can be a sensible precaution but used lightly and only with agreement once they are past, say, 16 years old and not really a child anymore.

once she hit adulthood and the hard partying I kind of didn't want to know when she was! None of my business. And now she's older and tells me some of the stories I'm glad I didn't know as I never would have slept!

When we say to teens - you are only safe if i know exactly where you are at all times (and I do wonder what 'safe' means here? kidnapping?! getting lost? ) - what are they internalising about their own capabilities to manage risk in the world

@Wondergirl100 I couldn't agree more.

As hard as it is, we have to let some element of risk into our lives (and our children's) in order to encourage independence.

Too many young people now are suffering with serious anxiety and fear (I say this as someone who works with young people and I have seen a stark increase over the last 5 years).

Parents tracking them will only make this worse as they just don't develop the resilience to cope with being alone.

You have to let your kids live and take risks sometimes or they will always feel dependent.

@Hungry625f

Wow. Tracking partners and parents?? Its not about knowing they are safe, it's a completely inappropriate way to manage your own anxieties. And also controlling. And weird. And a massive red flag.

This. I found it astounding that people do this!!!!

@catwomando

I used it when mine were younger but didn't tell them. Caught DD (then 14) staying over at her boyfriends house (she'd lied about a girls sleepover). She never did work out quite how I knew. Scared the shit out of her when I rang her at 11 at night saying "where are you really? "Gave her a hard stare (mums can do that over the phone too) , and she cried and fessed up. I insisted calmly that she carry on staying there and to come home in the morning when we'd talk it over. She spent the night bricking it. She never did that again without permission (which wasn't for another couple of years for boyfriend sleepovers)

I think it can be a sensible precaution but used lightly and only with agreement once they are past, say, 16 years old and not really a child anymore.

once she hit adulthood and the hard partying I kind of didn't want to know when she was! None of my business. And now she's older and tells me some of the stories I'm glad I didn't know as I never would have slept!

What a horrendous invasion of privacy.

I used it when mine were younger but didn't tell them. Caught DD (then 14) staying over at her boyfriends house (she'd lied about a girls sleepover). She never did work out quite how I knew. Scared the shit out of her when I rang her at 11 at night saying "where are you really? "Gave her a hard stare (mums can do that over the phone too) , and she cried and fessed up. I insisted calmly that she carry on staying there and to come home in the morning when we'd talk it over. She spent the night bricking it. She never did that again without permission (which wasn't for another couple of years for boyfriend sleepovers) grin

I’m surprised that you’re laughing about your 14 year old DD sleeping with her boyfriend at his house, and that you seen proud that you put a stop to it only by letting her know you were spying on her to be honest.

Nope. Never have, never will. I don't like it, it sits uncomfortably with me. Maybe it's because my teen boys are relatively mature and I trust them and thus I've never felt the need to?

Me and my 2 teens have Life360. We don't all live together since I separated from my exH and it's been really useful for us all. Nothing sinister or weird, just handy to quickly check where someone is when needed.

I find this so intrusive and invasive. I would never agree to it and if any man suggested it he would be swiftly dispatched from my life.

It’s all about pandering to the other person’s anxieties and controlling tendencies.
Tracking doesn’t keep someone safe, nor does it actually tell you they’re safe, it tells you where their phone is.
If you see my phone is in a park and has been for an hour, you don’t know if that’s because I’m sitting under a tree reading (which may be my routine on summer Saturdays) sitting on a bench slumped over having had a heart attack or lying in the bushes having been strangled. Or maybe my handbag was stolen and thief made off with my bulging wallet and threw the bag with phone inside into a rubbish bin.

And the ‘so I know when to put the dinner on’ justification makes me laugh and feel sad in equal measure. Who are these hoards of DHs and DCs who will expire from exhaustion if they’re not fed within a minute of walking in the door? And who are these 1950s wives/mothers who think it’s their duty to feed their husbands/children the minute they arrive? Do they have a pipe and slippers waiting too? I don’t know anyone IRL who actually wants to eat immediately when they arrive home, people I know want to relax for a bit, chat to whoever is at home etc.

At the children's homes I worked at it would have been outrageous if we did that with the teens there, to be honest. Seeing a location on a map tells you nothing about your teens' safety. Firstly it's the location of their phone not a microchip in their arm, secondly they could very well be dead or have their safety compromised in any number of ways. It's just to spy on where they are, plain and simple, not for safety reasons, no matter how well intentioned it is. It's especially crappy to do it covertly. And I think these people who claim their entire families rely on it (partners, adult children, parents, extended family), I actually think it shows lack of boundaries and normalises controlling behaviour, and it doesn't really teach our daughters that it's not healthy for them to be in relationships with men who track their every movement, after all their mum and dad did the same and it was all happy families!

I am of the opinion that people need to have honest conversations with their teens and always leave the door open, but you need to let them have the freedom and opportunity to risk assess by themselves, and to make mistakes and learn from them. As a teen, to always know that their parents can check where they are at any given time, as often as the parents deem fit without the teen's knowledge or consent each time, must feel like they are being micromanaged to be honest. I would have hated this and it would have caused me a lot of anxiety, even though on the whole I was a good teen who kept out of trouble.

Depends on the age of the teen. Dd will be 13 this year and happily shared her location on what's app when she's out with her friends. Was helpful last week when her friend ditched her up town and all the usual bus stops were closed and she had no idea how to then get home.

Not an issue yet but I think I probably will have find my phone or something when ds is a teenager. Tbh it's a fair time away, we will probably all have body computers by that point anyway haha

Is it instead of not letting them go out, or instead of letting them go out untracked? Because if it's being used to give them more freedom by letting them go further/ stay out later, etc then I think that's different to just automatically tracking them all the time.

Full disclosure, I plan to get DD one of those smart watches for kids you can track when she's a pre-teen, so that she can go out and about locally (we live rurally so basically running wild in the woods!) a bit younger than I'd otherwise be happy with. But I wouldn't be tracking her as, say, a 14 year old, unless maybe she wanted to go a really long way or camp out or something.

I have the find my iPhone app. My DC aren’t quite teens yet but when they are I’ll still be using it. I don’t watch them like hawks on their way home from school because that would be weird and I have better things to do. It’s just for my peace of mind if they’re ever later than usual. When they’re teens and they’re out alone more I’ll definitely want to know they aren’t in trouble if they’re late back.

It's awful. I would have hated this as a teenager.

If I'm on a night out and will be getting a cab home I usually send DP my live location on WhatsApp. Or going for a run on my own etc.

Never would I think of tracking Any of them day to day

It's not an appalling thing to do when they know about it . It's good sense.

I think it's really disturbing that people track
their partners, fronds and children, tbh.

I also agree with a PP who said that by teaching them it's normal, all you're doing is setting them up for huge issues in the future.

If you're raised to think having your every move and location tracked is normal and healthy, what happens when you get into a relationship with a man who says he must know where you are 24/7? And who will confront you and cause an argument (or worse) if you end up going somewhere else?

It also gives a false sense of security as all tracking someone does is show you where their phone is. It doesn't tell you they're alive, safe or in that location themselves.

And if you're used to knowing exactly where someone is all day, everyday and they suddenly turn their location off, are you really going to sit there and go "oh, it's fine" or are you going to get hugely paranoid and anxious and start thinking the worst?

When my kids were smaller they had location turned on- very useful for finding lost phones. We all knew it was on. I suppose I could have used it to track them but it didn't cross my mind to do so and in any event what would it have said? They're at school! They're at home! They're at football practice which I knew as I just took them there!

DH has never had his turned on, whereas mine is always on and shared with everyone so that the kids can find me when I'm picking them up after matches etc.

We have a family link. That means I can check where my children's phones are. I don't track them, as such. But if one of them didn't come home when expected (both the type to let me know) or one of them loses their phone (one is very scatty, like me), then I could use the 'tracker' to find the phone. I've had to help my eldest with finding a mislaid/lost phone more than once.

I also use 'live track' on my running app when I go for a run. I used to only turn it on if it was dark but that got annoying to remember. So now it's on every time. My husband could sit and monitor my run 🤣 but he's not a dick so he doesn't. But if I said I was going for a 45 minute run and was gone much longer without a word, it might be useful.

Some people seem to think technology is all or nothing. Just because trackers can be used to monitor someone's every movement doesn't mean they have to be. Just because we all used to live without this technology at all doesn't mean we have to now. There is a sensible middle ground.

My husband could sit and monitor my run 🤣 but he's not a dick so he doesn't.

But this is such an important point that many people are missing.

Your husband might be a good person but what if you've taught your kids that it's okay to be tracked and their partner is a dick who tracks their every move?

And what if your child decides to change loops or stop for a coffee and isn't home when they say, and their partner assumes they're lying or cheating and starts an argument or worse?

Just because you use it for nice, wholesome reasons doesn't mean everyone does so it shouldn't be something we teach our children is normal.

Some people seem to think technology is all or nothing. Just because trackers can be used to monitor someone's every movement doesn't mean they have to be. Just because we all used to live without this technology at all doesn't mean we have to now. There is a sensible middle ground.

I think this is a very good point. I also think you make a good point about having the ability to track but not doing so- my husband could track me in the same way that he could read my diary. I trust him not to do either.

We all have Find My Friends enabled on our iPhones, me, dh, ds1 and dd. I don't track the dcs as such but might check if they have got to town or see where dh is on his journey home so I know what time to make dinner without phoning him.

Just because you use it for nice, wholesome reasons doesn't mean everyone does so it shouldn't be something we teach our children is normal.

Christ almighty, using tech in one context does not mean that the same tech will be normalised for all other contexts. Do you really think that young people are that lacking in good judgement skills?

We use it primarily functionally- to make our lives easier. Thankfully my DSs know the difference between functionality and coercion - they aren’t so asinine as to think that the use of geo-tracking to simplify family life would always be the same as in other contexts. They know that it can be used for nefarious reasons.

Some kids have grown up with tech all their lives, they know how to avoid being located when they don’t want to be and how to discern appropriate use of tech given the context of varied types of relationships.

I find it a bit surprising that people think it's an invasion of privacy for 13/14 year olds. They are children. I don't think it an invasion of privacy to know where your child is at that age. Of course at 16/17 it is much more so, but at 13 they are children, not grown ups.

However I hadn't thought about the unhealthy lesson we could be teaching them that tracking is a way you show love. That's definitely food for thought and I agree I wouldn't want my kids to think that it was a good thing in an adult relationship. My husband and I do not track each other.

However I know my older teen niece and her friends all have snapmaps on. They seem to think it's normal.

Those saying their kids just tell them when they go somewhere else/change plans - what do you do if they don't? How long do you leave after you expected them to be home before you ask where they are? Or do you still not ask/ check?

A lot of the justifications here for universal tracking is that it's convenient in a few situations, and almost always situations where other solutions are even better. The horse/cycle riding off in to the wilds - not actually ideal as knowing where they are is only any use once you're concerned they're missing, by which time they've probably bled to death, a sport specific tracking enabled only for the activity would now also have included shock alerts, so when the horse threw the rider or the bike crashed an alert would've gone including the location so you knew there was an accident.

That's actual safety, the simplistic tracking does little, even if you're staring at the dot on the map, it doesn't tell you if it's stopped because there's a nice view to sit and watch and contemplate the world.

The "I'm home" etc. alerts, universal tracking for convenience, again the big problem is you need to stare at the map to see where they are, much better solution is some sort of geofence app which triggers actions when they arrive at a place - better functionality without the risk of spying.

If you're really doing it for these purposes and not because you like to monitor your family, please use better methods, the horse/bike is not safer.

Do you really think that young people are that lacking in good judgement skills?

Well from reading many posts here, young people are infantilised and mollycoddled to such a degree that I suspect their ability to appraise a situation and judge it correctly is quite impaired. Have a look at the relationship board and see how many women cannot tell how shitty and abusive their relationships are, and trot out the ‘great Dad’ line time and time again as if it justifies everything else.