AIBU to have my (just) 16 Yr old DD on a tracking app?

[ChicaneOvenchips]

Posting here for traffic as teens board not very busy.

My DD, just turned 16, says out of all her friends, she's the only person who's parent has them on a tracking app (in our case life 360) and this is highly embarrassing and uncalled for because she's really sensible.

She is sensible, I'm not worried she'll do anything silly. But I like to know that I could find her if she was in danger or scared. We live on an estate not in a town, with a bus service that is unreliable and infrequent and requires her to walk around 10-15 mins home from the nearest bus stop, partly through an unlit lane.

So AIBU or is this quite normal for her age and our circumstances?

@almondflake
"My youngest feels happier with me being able to find her as her sense of direction is dreadful and she's not very confident travelling alone and likes that we can find her if needed"

I'm assuming this isn't your 21 year old??

Nah that’s not true, I remember my mum doing a 1471 on me one night in the 90s when I called her from a phone box outside a nightclub having told her I was at my mate’s house! I also remember my mate’s dad coming into the pub to find her after she didn’t get home on time.

It is nothing to do with trust it’s about that worry that a parent has about their child as they become an adult which, yes we need to learn to manage, but it takes time.

it’s about that worry that a parent has about their child as they become an adult which, yes we need to learn to manage, but it takes time.

So how do you think parents managed before mobile phones, or before phones, even? When I was growing up, many of my schoolfriends did not have phones at home. My parents couldn't ring them up to see if I was there - not that they would have dreamed of doing that anyway.

I have my 16 year old on a tracking app but its “find my iphone”. Its just peace of mind i can see where he is. Hes a good kid. I dont think its a bad thing. Hes got ne on his too so sometimes he will ask when im back from X town etc. its no biggy

Been internally screaming this the whole thread!

I’ve a friend who tracked her 20 year old son at university. She was checking morning (to see if he was home), noon (to see if he was at lectures) and night (to see if he spent the night somewhere with which she was unfamiliar). When I raised an eyebrow, she said ‘it’s for safety and I pay the bill’.

Bollocks was it.

She was / is a great mum in so many ways but found cutting the apron strings incredibly hard. Knowing his location was tied into into her identity as Mum.

The irony is, she and I partied very very very hard in the late 80’s / 90’s rave scene and she’d have been the first to buy a burner or tell her folks to fuck off!

So a) read my post in full for examples of what parents did before mobiles b) pre phones is virtually pre teenagers, everyone had a home phone by the seventies b) wait til
you're in the situation yourself

You’re totally missing the point. Kid can still tell his mum to fuck off if he wants to. She can’t track without his permission. If he shares his location with her then he’s ok with it,, so why do you care?

Seriously we are all being tracked all the time anyway. ‘And unless you have known that pure animal fear of not knowing where your kid is when it’s 4am and they said they’d be home by 2, then you just don’t understand.

You can’t ’see at a glance that she’s at a friend’s house’, you can see that her phone is at a friend’s house, which is very very different to her being there. Particularly if she’s not answering the phone to you.

YOU are missing the point. We’ve said numerous times, the reason they are ok with it is because they’ve been brought up to see it as normal. If you’ve been tracked since age 10, and all your mates have, then of course you won’t object to it (nor will you then object to it if a controlling partner wanted to track you when you’re old enough to have one, because it’s your norm)

The ones saying that their kids track them more often than they track their kids make this no better. It just proves that your kids are anxious if you’re not around. They need to know where you are and what you’re doing because they may panic if they don’t know when you’ll be back… doesn’t sound healthy to me at all.

Have you ever met your average teenager?! They are SURGICALLY attached to their phones 😀😀😀. Dd has no need to hide anything from me we have a very open honest relationship.

It really isn’t ‘very very different’ unless a kid is going out of their way to deceive you - most aren’t, they’re just preoccupied by the fun they’re having. In general if their phone is somewhere., so are they.

And who exactly are we being tracked by? And for what reason? And why does that make it ok?

She is shit at answering her phone when I phone though in case I ask her to do a tedious errand no doubt.

Are you being obtuse? All of your web activity is tracked. Your physical movements are tracked by CCTV, unless you don’t leave the house. And maybe none of it is OK, but that’s a whole other argument.

Arguing with someone whose starting point is - in response to my posting about my son being blue lighted to hospital with a serious injury - to make a sanctimonious comment about teaching kids resilience and saying I’d have found him anyway, is a waste of my time.

that your position was - when challenged on your dickish comment to double down and claim I knew you hadn’t meant what you said is, again dickish and again arguing with you is a waste of my time

and the fact that you don’t even have a child old enough for a phone makes your comments utterly irrelevant, because this is all hypothetical for you

I’ve made the “counter argument” you seem to think I need to make: that when my DS was seriously injured, tracking his phone allowed me to arrive at the hospital before he was whisked into surgery. And further despite the fact I did that he’s now a well adjusted adult, who travels independently around the world, studies overseas and generally is suffering no ill effects from his parents being able to see if he’d caught the no 38 bus home on an evening

With respect.. bollocks.
If the choice is (whilst one is a student) ‘we pay your bill and therefore have the right to track you’ or ‘no phone’ then he ain’t got no choice.

And his mum is 60. She seems to have got to this age without being tracked by her parents.

Maybe she’s a superhuman (she’s not).

@friendlyflicka "i am 57. Tracking your child is shocking to me. I grew up before this was possible, obviously, and I am glad I did."

I'm 34 and feel the same as you!

When I raised an eyebrow, she said ‘it’s for safety and I pay the bill’.

@GoTigers If someone said that to me, I’d assume that they haven’t given their adult child any option but to be tracked, I.e., I’m paying for it so you have to be tracked. That doesn’t sit well with me, tbh, it’s very controlling in my eyes. But we all see things differently.

Tracking your child is only possible until your kids are the age to get full access to their phone settings or they download apps that fake location.

Yes agree it should only be with consent. Most kids will consent because they constantly share location on Snapchat anyway, so no big deal. If they want to switch it off on a particular occasion they will! But unless you have been the parent in this kind of situation, you have no idea what it’s like. You also have no idea what your own parents went through when they couldn’t get hold of you or you didn’t come home one night. Just because they survived the stress doesn’t mean it was good for them!

Such a shame the world has changed so much, no playing out in the street or personal freedom. As a sensible teenager (ok after a few drinks not as much but still careful) I would've hated being tracked, basically being watched 24/7, ugh! There were times I would out with friends and instead of going back to said friend's house we would crash at a party, next day a spontaneous drive to somewhere when living at home. They have mobile phones now, their friends have mobiles, we didn't. I would like to think when my DC in teenage years feel they have freedom and independence. X

Yup! I would've hated it as well. X

@Dweebie you seem a decent sort.

I definitely put my parent through it but the crucial thing is - when they knew. So, the night I called and asked to go to a party, was told No and went anyway. Yup. They were devastated, worried and furious.

But the nights I was 16/17/18 and thought I was at a friends? Well, technically I did end up back at said friends parents house - at 8am after going to various parties, raves or blues. Character forming times!

I say this without sarcasm - these were the nights I learned my limits, how to fend off twatty blokes, laughed my head off with my mates in dodgy bars, found out what I found terrifying (and so leant to say no), found my gut and instinct and had some of the best times of my life.

None of this Growing Up would have been possible if my parents knew where I was 24/7.

Teens are supposed to detach.

Surgically attached until they want to do something they know the parents wouldn’t permit/approve of, and they know they’re being tracked

In general, maybe. Until they’re not cos they’re doing something unexpected and not permitted. And then they’re more vulnerable cos they’ve no phone with them in case of trouble.