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?

@Newyeardietstartstomorrow so you'd be 100 percent okay with your kid turning it off, like you wouldn't quiz them or punish them

Ds12 doesn't take his phone to school or anywhere really. Apparently he does need it so I can't track even if I wanted.

My daughter is yet to be born, but I would feel reassured for her to have an AirTag when she's younger and phone tracking when she's old enough for a phone.

My husband & I track each other on Google Maps which is super handy for knowing when we might be home or just checking each other are ok, and my dogs are AirTagged after one bolted one day and was out alone for almost 24 hours.

tagging a dog is not the same as tagging a sentient human !!!

Dd1 started high school recently and got a phone for Christmas. We have Life360, although location is only on for me and dd1 so that she can see where I am as I have to collect dd2 from a different school, and I can see where she is if needed.

All this emotive language 'tracking' is hilarious 😂. It's just another way of finding each other at a busy time of day.

If you don't need it, fantastic, good for you 🤷

My DH and I with our DD(20), DS(17) and DD(12) all have find my iPhone activated so we can see each other's location if we want to. DD(20) has a long list of friends that she shares her location with for nights out. If any of them wanted to switch it off it wouldn't be an issue. It's just easier to quickly check where they are rather than having to text them. It's also useful for working out timings for cooking the evening meal!

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 ...

This.

Ordinary everyday movements - no need to track - let them live their young lives with freedom and privacy

Dodgy/risky/typical chaotic teen stuff - they'll get a burner phone/leave phone elsewhere. I mean - duh 🤣

My husband started it as he wanted me to know where he was as he is an ultra runner and runs 100 miles so it was easier to meet up with him with food etc, then my son wanted it so he could also see where we were, then my younger son asked for it but he does not share his location as due to his autism he never leaves the house.
My elder son then got a moped (behind my back as I hate them) so the agreement was that he does not ever turn his off.
Then last year my dad thought it was also a good idea so not only have we now got him we also got his partner.

To be honest unless we need to we don't actually look at it, but it's good for knowing when someone is near so you can put dinner on or the kettle.

Phone tracking your kids when they are out in the hills riding horses isn't 'weird and toxic', 'controlling' or 'setting them up to accept abusive relationships'. God Mumsnet is absurd most of the time sometimes.

This, my arse! They are teens, not drug dealers. Although if you're genuinely thinking about burner phones, maybe your teens are drug dealers?

We're not talking about seriously dodgy teens like the ones you apparently know.

As dodgy as yours might be. And know how to cover their tracks no matter how you think you can monitor.

I do it as my daughter was going to an area she wasn't allowed so I started to check. I don't do it much now just the odd occasion if I have to go out and she doesn't answer her phone.

They'd piss themselves laughing at the thought of burner phones and location hiding, they're not in the fecking Bronx. They have no tracks to cover.

It's mutual consent, they have no need to hide from me, I rarely look, they are totally on board with all of the family sharing our locations (except the one who opted out, and thats fine too)

So you wish to believe. Reality probably differs.

I don't track my kids. They have phones and txt to say where they are or if they will be late. We have trust between us. Thankfully we didn't have mobiles when I was a teen, I would have hated being tracked.

Idk if you were talking about my 14 yo dd collapsing. Unfortunately it is a lot more than that. She also occasionally does things like going off on a bus to a friend’s house without telling me. I only want know where she is in case something happens. It doesn’t happen often but it will completely freak the person or parent she is with, especially if she hurts herself and needs an ambulance. It’s not sneaky on my part to track her from time to time but this does mean I don’t like her going off alone for longer distances, which luckily she doesn’t tend to do as she’s mostly with friends.

Someone upthread said they’ll insist their dc don’t go out alone when they’re old enough to be out by themselves. That only holds water for a while and tweens / teens go off alone even if it is just walking to school or the bus stop.

I suspect it very much depends on the teen and the parents.

Me and my mum shared location from when I was about 16, and I rarely even thought about it. She mainly wanted it for when I would go to house parties etc. - it didn't cause any issues because she was usually happy with me going places as long as she knew who I was with and when I would be home, and I always came home on time or there abouts. I wasn't a wild teen, so the time she wanted me home was usually the time I would have taken myself home anyway.

If anything it probably caused much fewer arguments because if I was running late, she'd be able to see if I was en route or still there, so she wasn't out of her mind with worry that I'd gone off somewhere daft.

I have Family Link on my DD's phone. Primarily to oversee what apps she has but it has location on it. She's just started secondary and takes a bus every day. The first few weeks I kept an eye to make sure she was doing ok. Now I barely ever look at it. As people have said, there's a difference between actively tracking someone and having the ability to see where they are. I can see where her phone is, but I don't track her every movement.

It has been useful because she's autistic and can panic if things don't go to plan. Once she tried to take a different bus home from school when hers hadn't turned up. I could see she'd missed the stop she needed to switch buses and calmly ring her and tell her. Get her off at the next stop and I went to meet her. If she'd eventually realised she'd missed the stop and was in a part of London she didn't recognise she may well have had a meltdown and I'd have struggled to get her location out of her.

The more experience she has out and about the more confident she'll get and then we can always turn the location services off and she can choose to ping me if she wants. But currently location services give her much more independence because they offer a way to help her in the event she needs it.

@gettingalifttothestation
Tracking your adult daughter on a night out is very invasive, have a word with yourself.

Mine are absolutely the same. Mad to think all teens have burner phones 😅😅

Don't bother tracking for everyday but....
Air tags in school sports bags after they went missing by accident numerous times and ended up lost. No more lost kit.

Whole family is on the iphone map thingy. Again, rarely check it but It's incredibly useful when timing pick ups and delays, less waiting around at stations. Also great for shopping days when you split up to do your own thing and want to meet up again when you're done.

Like they could be bothered! “Tracking” sounds very dramatic like I sit here obsessively checking. We have the find my phone app (only recently worked out how to use it that’s how bothered I am) which I occasionally check if a teen has not turned up when I was vaguely expecting them then I see they are at their mates house end of. That I am setting them up for a coercive control relationship is laughable 🙄

We location share on findmy iPhone.

it’s consented, they have to agree and can turn it off at any time.

we just find it useful. They can send a text for us to pick them up and we can just tap the iphone location for directions. They can see where we are while waiting for a lift.

just makes life easier all round 🤷‍♀️

I do, and I love it. It's so useful. Has helped us find lost devices, see when my kids are going to be home for dinner, direct a confused grandparent to the right school gate, and the kids can see where I am too so my DS with anxiety likes to check that I'm home ok.

Myself and my dds are on Life360. Dd1 is (almost) 20, but has ASD and I feel much more comfortable knowing where she is as she's vulnerable. Dd2 is 16 and doesn't like it, but knows it's a condition of her being allowed so much freedom. I don't put many restrictions on her and give her a lot of privacy, but I insist on knowing where she is at all times. If she wants it to stop when she's 18, then I will.