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?

My DD does this too. I have all the kids on find my friends but rarely use it. Only if I want to make sure they are getting home ok. The kids track me more so they know when I'm going to be home or if it looks like I'm in the shop so they can add to the list 🙄

I swear mine have the supermarket or local shops highlighted on their apps. They seem to know exactly when I'm about to buy food 🙄

If someone posted a AIBU my husband/wife has put a tracker on my car everyone would call them controlling and advise them to leave. But apparently tracking your partner by their phone is acceptable.

He's got some visual difficulties so things like changing trains in busy stations are a bit more challenging for him than the average person - he can't always easily read the electronic noticeboards etc and particularly at the moment the railways seem to be a bit chaotic so I can't help worrying that he is going to end up on the wrong platform and miss one of the connections. At University everything is familiar to him and he's on a very compact campus so I don't have the same concerns. It's illogical of course as I couldn't actually do anything if he did miss a train, but it makes me feel better to see that he is passing the right places at about the right times and he doesn't mind, so why not?

I recently started using Life360 with my teen. She used to say she was on the way home when past her curfew on school nights (age 15) and get back so much later she obviously was not en route.
She tends to hang around with friends in parks and open country areas after dark and then make her way home by bus on her own.
I think it is important for her safety to know where she is and whether she is travellling home.

I have two teenagers with tracking. None negotiable for me
Why? how did we survive before this tech?
Some PPs here are very controlling and interefering.

I have a 15 year old daughter and I do keep track of her location using find my iPhone, and the same on her watch. This way I know that if she is sat in some godforsaken field somewhere, and in case of emergency I know where she actually is. I’ve made no secret of it so it’s not sneaky tracking. I also keep my location on so she or my husband can always know where I am too.

We had a chat about tracking and both mine are happy to. They know I’ll only check it if they are late and not picking up. I don’t think it’s a bad thing unless it’s abused.

Absolutely. This generation is growing up thinking that it's normal to be tracked and that it "keeps you safe". It's not difficult to imagine how future governments will exploit this accepting attitude for purposes that we might not be so comfortable with.

It sounds like we’re going to have a generation of children who think someone tracking them because they love them and want to know they’re safe is the norm. The coercive controllers are going to love it.

I agree that it may train children to accept being surveilled/controlled by partners later in life.

I have a friend who tracks adult daughter who lives in a different city. She is genuinely terrified that her daughter is going to be murdered and checks she has gone to work and got home. This means her daughter who lives 100 miles away needs to tell her that she is going out to eat, the pub or anywhere else. It is utterly insane. She can't rest until she knows her daughter is home for the night.

We all have life 360 on our phones ( my children are 14 and 11 ). It seems very much the norm now. My 14 year old has different 'circles' on 360, one for family, another with all her friends on.

I'm bloody glad my mum couldn't track me as a teen. She was a controlling arse and if I'd even stopped at the shop age 15 she'd be a massive pain about it. She'd have wanted to track me at university too and asked why I was at XYZ. I'm sure everyone who answers this will say it's out of love but there'll be some controlling arses out there:

With Life 360, if they want to turn it off they can. It's up to them.

My kids know the difference between being visible to family members and being tracked by unknown 'big brothers'. They're both tech savvy and always lock down theur security settings, delete cookies etc. So it's silly to suggest that location-sharing among family is somehow going to expose them to wider issues.

We do and it’s been a great thing for random car trouble in places they don’t quite know, missing trains, bike punctures, taxi pick ups, ‘mum I’ve forgotten my keys and will come to
you to get yours’ and the odd ‘I’ve over indulged and need help’. I don’t check obsessively but I like the peace of mind

You've spent too much time on Mumsnet

our family all have iPhones and the fund my friends enabled. I don’t use it regularly - more for things like if my eldest is more than half an hour late home from work on a Saturday (he’s 17) I’ll quickly look to see if he’s still at work or on his way home yet. I sometimes use it to see if my husband is likely to be home for the school run 😂 too. But it’s more there for peace of mind than anything else!

Dd went to school in Central London.

I tracked her to see where she was as sometimes she went out with her friends after school and I could see that she was at a certain location and when she was on her way home.
She was always good at letting me know when she was on her way home.

That is definitely true

But I do think it is basically weird to surveil your own family.

DS is 17, 18 in 2 weeks. I’ve been keeping an eye on his location since he first started secondary or slightly later. It’s easier to just check the app than to call or message constantly. I share my location with him too, so he can check whether he has any time to drag a cheeky fag in the garden or not.
I also share my location with my DM and DSis and it’s so handy. No messages, just checking the app.

If he hadn't shared location why would you be calling or messaging constantly?

We didn’t have phones or trackers

I had the neighbours who would report back about anything and everything I did.

Even if it was walking down the street.

There is a great deal to be said for London
and being anonymous in a crowd.

I track dd, 12, as she is just finding her feet being out and about and she likes that I know where she is and can see it she gets in trouble / kidnapped and zooms off in a car! She's very good at telling me where she is and asking etc and I don't expect to still be doing it in a few years

I have 2DC aged 17 & 18. They are both on our apple family plan and I can track them via findmyiphone. They both know about this and are happy for me to do so, when necessary.

When my eldest turned 18 & started going out clubbing, he kept forgetting to text me to tell me when he was home (circa 4.30am) and I kept waking him up accidentally by checking if he was in his room (Ive got a Samsung now and its a faff to use findmyihone as I have to use my Mac)

He actually downloaded snapchat onto my phone so I can check his location on the map as he has shared it with me and his sister so it doesnt matter if he forgets to text me.

I rarely check it but its good to know its there in case I do need it.

We are a very open family and very little out of bounds for them. We talk a lot and know their values are similar to ours in as much as they can be when you're a teenager. I lied to my parents ALOT when I was their age about where I was as they were overly strict and restricted where I could go and with who. Because of that, I am a very different parent to mine and we've never had any issues with lying about where they are or what they were doing.

Ive been known to collect them and their mates from clubs and pubs before if its got too late and the wait for a taxi is too long. Being woken up at 2am to get them isnt unheard of.

I dont track them as a matter of course, I only ever look at it to check if they are home after a night out for their safety and I dont usually need to do this anyway as i often get woken up as they get out of the taxi, or Im up with younger children in the night.

I think its got its place from a safety point of view, but it should be completely open with everyone knowing the ability to locate them is there and not used as a mean to spy on them.

They've never had reason to lie to us about where they have been as we are reasonable parents and also not stupid. Weve allowed alcohol since they were 16 as they were going to do it anyway, nights spent camping at the beach with mates etc so there hasnt been a need to lie.

However, due to my different relationship growing up with my parents I would have gone apeshit if they had been able to do this to me, but I dont parent like they do and I trust my kids and they trust me which I suppose is the difference.