Parents tracking their children

[intrestedvic]

I am always reading on threads how people know where their children are due to apple air tags or, apps, or location sharing on a phone.

Not just on mumsnet but in my circle I know lots of parents who use maps or share location with children.

I am a parent to small children currently but I was wondering opinions on this situation. If you track your children and why and if not why not?

That is a really important point about being careful who you add on Snapchat- my children are both at university now but in my experience online safety is discussed throughout school life, so they will get the message from you and from school.

Yes three teens. Life 360 is brilliant. One works in London and goes out after work for drinks. I would be texting and asking if ok and got the train but don't need to as I can see where she is and it stops me worrying myself to death. Other two both work evenings and I can reassure myself without bugging them by messaging

I don't want to be tracked so I won't track my teen children.

I think it's controlling. It also means if your teen is up to something they don't want you to know about they are likely to jettison their phone/buy a burner you don't know anything about (yes, my teens' friends have done these things) just so you can't track them. And if they are up to perfectly normal everyday things, then you don't need to track them ...

It's also really just telling you where his phone is, not where he is

DD wrote an essay about this for CompSci a few weeks ago, and we spent a few evenings discussing it. Along with looking at research articles on it.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/chso.12016

I’m tech adjacent and I don’t track her. I have the ability to as we all have iPhones, but she could just switch her phone off if she wanted to prevent me from doing so. We also have Tiles on our keyrings (both have ADHD) and I could track her through that, but again, she could bin it or remove the battery to prevent it.

Too many ways for teens to circumvent the tech, too many ways it can fail, and that’s before the ethical or psych side of being constantly monitored.

My 13 year old has find my switched on on their iPhone so I can see where she is. When she pays her own phone bill she can switch it off.

I have the ability to track all four of my DC including the ones that are now young adults.

allowing me to track was a precondition of them getting iPhones when they were 11/12 as a safety feature. If the older ones switched it off now it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest.

I check their location to ensure they’ve got to where they’re going or they’ve got home etc.

I’ve never been the sort of parent who hasn’t let them to do the things they want to so there’s never been a question of checking their honesty, it’s 100% safety.

they all tack their friends and seem to have location sharing permanently switched on across various platforms, so I think it’s just a new normal.

I track my 13yo dd through her iPhone. She is aware that she is sharing her location and I share mine with her. I have no reason to think she’s lying to me about where she is, so it’s not about that! She’s just not a great communicator and not great at answering the phone, so it’s handy sometime for me to able to check where she is. Her school is a 40 min walk away and it often takes her up to 2 hours to get home as her and her friends mess about in the park and in town on the way home. That’s fine, but sometimes it’s handy to see how far from home she is so I can make a guess as to what time she might get back! Location services don’t always work though.

If my mum was tracking me to avoid ‘worrying herself to death’ when I, a working adult, was merely going for drinks after work, I’d be leaving home.

Dts are only 11 so I use find my my iPhone to see that they have got to school as they're are supposed to text me and always forget and same for on the way home I can see when they're on the bus. They like to see when I'm on my way home from work.

I was by no means a terrible teen but I would have 100% bought a burner phone I was being tracked by my parents, 100% definitely, for certain.

DSD mum tracks her, she's over the top though. DSD is staying with us and yesterday her Mum rang to ask why she hadn't left for school yet. It was because I had to go to the office anyway so offered her a lift to school.

I do think kids are more anxious now and this narrative that there's danger round every corner so I'm going to track you isn't helping.

Honestly mine are ambivalent. Where did you go as a teen that was so shocking?! Poor sods these days haven’t a chance of getting into pubs or clubs until 18 so that’s out. My teens are open with us no need to hide where they are.

I never opt to track mine. But sharing location when out seems to be something they and all their friends do. So I can see they are in Primark when in town in case I couldn't work that out for myself.

I have family link on the teenagers phones, but I don't sit around "tracking" them 🤣
It is handy though, my youngest gets very anxious if she is on the bus and the traffic is bad, she starts texting me saying she is going to be late for school, so I can open the app, see where the bus is and assure her she has plenty of time, or she is nearly there so she won't be late.
Also if they lose their phones we can see where they are showing up.
Mostly, we use it to see if they are nearly home so I can let the dog run out to greet them, or they text and say I'm nearly home let the dog out.
It's not really a big issue.

I put AirTags on my children (4 and 7) if we travel (busy airport) or we go to the park/ they go to the park with others so I can see if they are on the way back

Am sick of this 'you need to do this thing I have made up in my head because I have issues' it seems to be happening more and more

We have family link. If I need to check whether my dc's will be home at X time it's easier for me to check the map than text them and get no answer.

This post is a good example of why tracking is a bad idea.

The issue here is the poster's anxiety, not any actual need to track their DC. They should be able to go for a night out without constantly checking in.

What if they decided to go somewhere else instead or you lost sight of the tracker? What would you actually do?
More to the point, you're not tracking them, you're tracking their phone. What if they drop it or it's stolen?

Planning on air tagging mine! Especially on days out.

I ended up in the lost property office at Morcambe’s Frontierland more than once 😬

We as a family share all our locations with apple find my friends.

We also visit friends around the uk and when heading to see them, we share our eta via the app too, so they can see where we are, progress etc.

It was resisted initially by them, but the kids track us more than we track them. I mean they actively mention our locations. I kinda keep an eye on the younger teen a bit more as she walks home from school and has some erratic school times as she is a levels. One has moved out and has her own family, but it’s helpfull for us all of we are flying past, or out and arranged to meet up, etc etc.

I guess some people see big brother and some people see connection and security.

we can also ping each others devices when they are lost (happens once a week to one of us) and also ping someone if you need to get them urgently. Eg. Teen being harassed by someone and can’t or doesn’t want to make a coded phone call - but rather a discreet ‘help’ msg and ping me - and i know it’s an emergency and know exactly where she is and will get to her in minutes. Thankfully only used the once with some weirdo who scampered real quick when he saw a 6’2” wall screech up and jump out of the car - photo passed onto police intel.

I think it's weird and toxic. I don't track my husband, I don't track my kids. I'd hate to be tracked myself. If I decide to pull into Costa on my way home from work for ten minutes peace I don't want everyone mithering me with orders/asking when I'll be back! If I didn't trust my kids I wouldn't let them out/I'd wait til I felt they were mature enough to follow the sensible rules I give them. If they encounter trouble they have phones to call me. They have a right to privacy and it's quite incredible how tech giants are making us give that up. The kids are too young to know any different, but freedom to make choices for the right reasons, not because you're being tracked, seems to me a pretty fundamental thing.

I don't get it, mine are young adults and I never would dream of tracking them. My parents had no idea where I was and couldn't even call, we grew up fine.

We track the children and they track us because it gives us all a rough idea or where we are

Which park is DD in if I need to go and find her.

Is DS on the way home from the town or the nearby city.

Am I at the airport or is DH on the train.

All consenting and its useful.

If my DD was not a great communicator and not answering the phone, I would be working on that, not absolving them of all responsibility to improve.