Tracking teenagers

[glittergrrl]

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

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?

That's not what I said at all.

But abusive relationships rarely start with you being punched in the face - or nobody would stay in them. They start slowly.

So if you've been raised with tracking as the norm and your partner suggests it when you go on your long runs, you may not see it as weird as it's what your parents did.

But then it grows. They track your runs. Ask where you've been if you're longer than necessary. Wonder why you needed to stop in x park for coffee when you could come home and have it there etc. wonder why you went on a different route than planned and don't believe it's because it was too muddy or whatever.

Most abusive relationships start normal and become abusive over time so you don't realise it's happening until you're in too deep. I just don't think it's a good idea to normalise things like tracking peoples movements when it's not necessary in everyday life and something that's so, so open to abuse.

It's also something that feeds into peoples anxieties and doesn't actually help them feel better as as soon as that technology fails or the other person changes their mind, the anxieties will be back and worse than ever.

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?

I was expected to be home at a certain time. I never pushed and stayed out later as I know the response from my parents would be to ground me and not let me out and I didn't want to to get into trouble.

But I have to ask - what do you think tracking achieves here? Your kids could turn off tracking or switch off their phones and you'd be none the wiser. They could check in elsewhere to fool you, leave their phone at a friend and do all manner of things to stop being tracked.

And then what would you do? Rely on the tracking which could be wrong and giving you a false sense of security because their phone says they're at Joe's house?

I used to feel strongly about not tracking. But now we've got the technology on our phones I'm used to it.

DP shared his location with me when he was on a long journey home, and has left it on. I don't use it to spy on him! But very occasionally it's useful to see how far he is from home.

Similarly, I've shared my google location with him now.

Sadly our lives are so predictable these days, we're never anywhere interesting so there's no surprises! But it is useful on occasion.

I have asked 13 year old DS to put the tracking on, on his phone, so if I ever needed to find him I could. It would be great in an emergency and I'd regret not asking him to do it, if there was such an emergency.

The tracker tracks the phone not the child! If he wanted to trick me he could just turn the location function off or leave it with a friend and I'm sure DC do this all the time.

Trackers could certainly be used in very controlling and oppressive ways. It depends on who's using them and how, I now realise. Having it on for emergencies is a good idea in my opinion.

I wonder how many people here are being tracked by their phone and don't realise it?

Go to www.google.com/maps/timeline and see if there's data there on where you've been? (Or, where your phone has been).

This isn't the same as sharing a live location with someone else. But the data is collected there if you have location switched on, and can be seen on any device where you're logged into a google account (e.g. if it's logged into your google).

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?

That's not about technology, that's about healthy relationships.

This tech is here to stay, so kids need to know how to use it healthily, just like the internet and cars.Modern fangled things while bringing great convenience can also cause a risk, which is why we teach children to cross roads and not talk to strangers online and incorporate tracking devices into their lives in healthy ways. Teaching about healthy relationships has been part of parenting since the beginning of the human race.

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

Yes, I don’t disagree with the sentiment of what you say, although I don’t think the MN relationship board is a good snapshot of the social writ at large.

However, many people who respond on the relationship board often demonstrate good judgement skills and adult (not infantilised) perspectives. But to argue that the thin edge of the wedge is tech doesn’t make sense. Tech is a tool and discernment, judgement, relationship skills, and maturity are developed or not developed regardless of tech.

@NoneOfYour32Potatoes

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.

But the tracking and having your location always on and available is the starting point, the baseline. It will escalate from there. I think it is better to instead show that it is not normal or healthy to know where your loved ones are at the push of a button, that no matter how much you love someone you are allowed boundaries and privacy. I think wholesome for-the-whole-family tracking normalises something quite sinister.

It didn't occur to me to track our just-turned-16 year old. I have her phone linked to mine to enforce downtime and share any subscriptions. But just checked our settings now because of this thread: her location sharing is off. No idea if she and her pals are using SnapMaps... hoping they can't be bothered.

I can definitely see the temptation to geo track. My 8 year old has just started walking to and from school with friends and is asking for more permission to roam the neighbourhood with them. And I don't want to give her a phone yet, because if I give her a smart phone, it really will be the only thing she'll pay attention to. She's too young and immature to have one yet. But then, that means letting her go straight to the library after school on her own feels like too high a risk: too many gaps in the day and journey to fill, should something go wrong. A tracking watch sounds like a great solution at first... unless she's not wearing it, and there's every chance she'd take it off and forget to put it back on.

I think I would rather teach both girls to communicate with me. Text me when you've arrived. Text me when you're on the bus. Call me if you're running late; do not make us worry. Charge your phone. Take a power pack with you if your battery might run low. Call me and have a long chat if you're walking around somewhere and feeling nervous. Tell me about the landmarks around you if you're lost; read the street signs, read the bus stop sign. Come home and ask me first if it's ok to go to the park with your pals. Learn to wear a normal watch and pay attention to the time. Be home when we've asked you to. Be savvy about your surroundings and the people you interact with.

I think wholesome for-the-whole-family tracking normalises something quite sinister.

Fair dues, it doesn’t necessarily need saying but it’s a valid opinion. I disagree. But I am reading the posts against geo-tracking with an open mind. There will be varying opinions on this just as other aspects of parenting.

As for the social psychology of tracking within the context of a family unit and the long term imprint that will leave, I guess time will tell.

@iCouldSleepForAYear

It didn't occur to me to track our just-turned-16 year old. I have her phone linked to mine to enforce downtime and share any subscriptions. But just checked our settings now because of this thread: her location sharing is off. No idea if she and her pals are using SnapMaps... hoping they can't be bothered.

I can definitely see the temptation to geo track. My 8 year old has just started walking to and from school with friends and is asking for more permission to roam the neighbourhood with them. And I don't want to give her a phone yet, because if I give her a smart phone, it really will be the only thing she'll pay attention to. She's too young and immature to have one yet. But then, that means letting her go straight to the library after school on her own feels like too high a risk: too many gaps in the day and journey to fill, should something go wrong. A tracking watch sounds like a great solution at first... unless she's not wearing it, and there's every chance she'd take it off and forget to put it back on.

I think I would rather teach both girls to communicate with me. Text me when you've arrived. Text me when you're on the bus. Call me if you're running late; do not make us worry. Charge your phone. Take a power pack with you if your battery might run low. Call me and have a long chat if you're walking around somewhere and feeling nervous. Tell me about the landmarks around you if you're lost; read the street signs, read the bus stop sign. Come home and ask me first if it's ok to go to the park with your pals. Learn to wear a normal watch and pay attention to the time. Be home when we've asked you to. Be savvy about your surroundings and the people you interact with.

Yes, that's all great and teaching your girls to be aware is great.

But you're making it sound as if an 8 year old can be expected protect themselves from predators if they have a sensible head. And this isn't true. They're only children. Yes, we can teach them not to go off with strangers willingly. But that doesn't stop them literally being snatched (as someone tried with me when I was 13). Or from being groomed by people they trust.

My DD is the same age and wanting more independence. I'm not at the point where I'll let her be out of the house on her own. But when I am, she'll have location on, on her phone. It's not foolproof, of course. But it's one thing that could be very helpful to help us find our children in an emergency.

I think wholesome for-the-whole-family tracking normalises something quite sinister.

I think the whole of the internet is sinister tbh. We're sleepwalking into a pretty dystopian world.

But that doesn't stop me wanting to use it to keep my family safe. These things are never black and white.

We have life360 app for the family (two 15 year olds) it's really handy. Can be turned off though if wanted. It's been so useul many times on pickups, meeting back up on days out. One ds gets two buses from school and it's been useful synching up when to pick him up off one partcular bus when he didn't knnow the stops etc. It's so practical.

My teens are in their rooms every night, so it's just used for travel convenience or if we're on a day out and we need to meet up etc.

My DM is very eye-rolly about DD and I being able to see each other's location. But the other day she got lost in some woods. She thought she was going to have to spend the night in the woods, but luckily someone came along and told her how to find her car. She was genuinely planning to sleep under a bush when the weather could have been sub zero. The use of technology could have very easily saved her life. DD understands this, which is why she is happy to be tracked. She has her Snapchat locations off, and always has. I think it's about having a healthy relationship with tracking tech, and it's our job as parents to teach this.

What three words would have saved me hours of trying to figure out where my DSs were when they were young teens. "I'm in a field with a gate and there are some trees" doesn't give me much to go on.

@LynetteScavo

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?

That's not about technology, that's about healthy relationships.

This tech is here to stay, so kids need to know how to use it healthily, just like the internet and cars.Modern fangled things while bringing great convenience can also cause a risk, which is why we teach children to cross roads and not talk to strangers online and incorporate tracking devices into their lives in healthy ways. Teaching about healthy relationships has been part of parenting since the beginning of the human race.

Of course it's about healthy relationships.

But the point is that the technology can be used as yet another tool to abuse people (mainly women) so teaching our children it's normal to be tracked day in, day out opens them up to much more severe issues further down the line.

We have location turned on. It's not about sitting and obsessively seeing where their phone is.

It's for when I am late home they can see I'm still at work or on my way back.

It's for when they've lost their phone: we can see it's in the co-op and go retrieve it.

Its not coercive and we are all happy with it.

It seems to me that tracking could actually make kids more unsafe- group of kids know they have to have tracking on and are supposed to be at a friends house for example. The kids want to go out and about at 10pm when they know their parents wouldn’t allow it. Kids sneak out at 10pm and instead of taking their phones they leave them at friends house so the tracking won’t get them in trouble. Kids are now out and about without phones so don’t have the ability to contact someone in an emergency. If they weren’t being tracked they would have taken their phones.

Also it doesn’t tell you anything about safety- if you check and your husband is stationary on the motorway you don’t know if they are safe- could be traffic or could be they have crashed the car into the central barrier.

People are very rarely kidnapped but if they surely the first thing a kidnapper would do is get rid of their phone, so tracking says they are in the park because the phone is in the nearest bin.

My DD14 tracks me so she knows I am actually on my way to collect her from school and haven’t got distracted with some work after I text her to say I m just leaving! (I can collect her any time between 4 and 6 it’s not like I m leaving her standing on the cold) I also use the app to track DS12 school bus to make sure he’s boarded it in the morning and to see what time to expect him at night and also to make sure he’s remembered to get on the bus and isn’t waiting for me in the car park. Other than that I don’t track them, I message them when they are out though just to check they are ok!

@PinkSyCo
Unless friends are now tracking each other now that doesn’t even make sense
I would have HATED to have been constantly watched as a teen, so why would I inflict that on my kids.

Teens can literally can track one another constantly if they wish. They all seem to have Snapchat. DD’s friend was awful to her and she needed some space to decide if she still wanted to be friends. The girl would not leave her alone. She gate crashed a bunch chat (they use this as house party shut down) and the girls were silly enough to tell her their plans and she invited herself along. Dd had said no. I suggested dd removed the ability for her to see where she is. But apparently that would be too hard as they can track one another in a number of ways so it was no point. The girl turned up. They’re 13.

@cookiemonster2468
It is not an invasion of privacy to know where your 14 year old is staying the night. They are a child. I had a friend, who was 16 and used to go off to random men’s houses every weekend after a night out. Her poor parents. Had they been able to track her, they’d have known where she was.

Dd (13) does have find my phone enabled. I mainly find it useful to see if her school bus has left so I can meet her off it at the correct time - I try to drive behind as it stops along a main road so precise tracking is really useful.

Dd also used to tell me where she was at all times aged 11 and didn’t have find my phone. But these days she is a bit more lax. She went to a sleepover last weekend. The girl’s mum was then dropping her in town and it was up to dh and me to collect them later. I asked her to update me when they arrived in town but she didn’t. Having not heard from her after a couple of hours, I quickly checked to see if she’d been dropped off in town. She wouldn’t have wanted to be interrupted either with a phone call. This was the easier option not to cause a fight and talk to her once she was home to let me know next time. This then puts the onus on her.

This wasn’t about being intrusive as some people seem to think. Once they were in town, we were the on duty parents so to speak. The other parents live a fair distance away from town. As we live far far closer and because dd has a medical condition, we would have been the ones to go. I’m also a chronically ill person. It’s important to be able to plan my time so that I know when I can be off duty and / or asleep.

Tracking a phone only means that you know the phone's location. It doesn't always mean you know where the person is, although it usually does.
It doesn't mean that the tracked person is safe. How does it help to know where they are? Presumably in the unlikely event that they are lost, or need picking up, what's wrong with just phoning home and saying so?

Tracking a phone only means that you know the phone's location. It doesn't always mean you know where the person is, although it usually does.

Which is really handy when your dc loses her phone with her contactless card inside too - as we found out yesterday

I've never tracked mine,just trusted them to tell me where they are which they always did.
God knows how I ever survived being a teen in the 80's without trackers, mobile phones etc....

@Guacamoleontoast

Tracking a phone only means that you know the phone's location. It doesn't always mean you know where the person is, although it usually does. It doesn't mean that the tracked person is safe. How does it help to know where they are? Presumably in the unlikely event that they are lost, or need picking up, what's wrong with just phoning home and saying so?

Completely agree.

@hookiewookie29

I've never tracked mine,just trusted them to tell me where they are which they always did. God knows how I ever survived being a teen in the 80's without trackers, mobile phones etc....

I ttrust mine to tell me where they are too They (and we) still have phone trackers though, because they're useful for all the reasons people have given. My teens clearly trust us to use it wisely, and consider it useful, because otherwise they would turn it off.

@Guacamoleontoast

Tracking a phone only means that you know the phone's location. It doesn't always mean you know where the person is, although it usually does. It doesn't mean that the tracked person is safe. How does it help to know where they are? Presumably in the unlikely event that they are lost, or need picking up, what's wrong with just phoning home and saying so?

That just shows a lack of imagination of the myriad of other ways trackers are useful (quite a few are mentioned in this thread).