Phone tracking while at university

[Fenimore]

Astonished that so many parents I know are tracking their kids by phone. These are 18/19 year olds. I guess the young people don’t mind or they’d turn off the tracking. I just don’t think it’s healthy.

One parent I know is checking every day to see if their son is at lectures as well as what time he’s home from a night out.

i don’t track DD. One, she really wouldn’t like it and two, I think it would be stressful as well as being an invasion of privacy.

Does anyone do this?

This is absolutely nuts.

Yes agree. Thats why, on that mad day when all students move in together, I asked for the phone number of two of the other parents and they had mine. We never used it but it was useful to have when they all got Covid. If mine hadn’t answered the phone everyday I had a contact who could ask their child to knock on the door.

Yeah, it’s very weird, but so many parents treat their adult children like babies these days. Someone who worked at a supermarket told me that some parents do their kids online food shop for them while they’re at university!

No wonder they all have anxiety and can’t cope with having to do anything in their own.

I would say it was OTT, but I know of someone that was raped and murdered in a random attack only a couple of weeks ago, so I can totally understand close family having the ability to check on where someone is.

Checking if they've gone to lectures though? Totally unreasonable!

A random attack (rape and / or murder) would happen so quickly. Being able to see someone's location would not make the slightest bit of difference. Also as most kids who are living away at Uni are far from home, even if their location was in some random spot, what would a parent do? By the time they've got in a car and driven over there it would most likely already have happened.

I think you are the weird and intrusive one.

All tracking would do would be give the last known location of the person's phone. It gives a good clue as to where they are (or where the phone is, as they might have dropped it or left it behind). It can't physically stop assaults from happening.

You can't hold their hands as though they were toddlers forever. 18 and 19 is a perfect age for more adult independence. They should have been learning that slowly throughout their teens anyway.

They're not children if they're at uni, they're adults.
As for being a good time to call what happened to just calling, if it's not a good time they won't pick up.
The excuses for parents feeding their own anxiety on here are quite something.
You are all using dots on a screen in place of communication.
And if all this surveillance was around when I was a young teen I would definitely leave my phone at my friend's to sneak off with my boyfriend. The naivety of some people!

I have 4 kids, 2 adults and 2 teens. I track 1 of the adult children and both teens, however they also track me!
One of my teens often goes to concerts and events with friends, and it means I can find them easily by using track my phone. They also often call to say please pick me up from X place when my bus arrives at Y spot. With tracking I know when and where to get them.
The adult child I track lives abroad, sometimes I will check they are home before calling so I know I'm not interrupting travelling or work. They do the same and will often check I have left the house for work or work for home and then ring me so we can chat while I'm travelling.
None of us mind this, so I think its a conversation between families. I know people at work think its weird that we all track each other, but it works for us. My youngest likes to be able to see where I am and track how long it might take me to get home.
If it doesn't work for you and your child, then that's fine, but it does work for others.

I think it’s incredibly infantilising. University students are grown adults. They should no more be tracked by their parents while living away from home at 18 than I should be tracked by mine in my 40s. Fucking weird to be monitoring the movements of an adult child. What are parents going to do with that information, exactly? Tell them off for missing a seminar? Call the police every time they see the student is in a location they don’t recognise, in case they’ve been abducted?

How do people think anyone coped with their kids going university before smart phones? I graduated in 1998. My parents didn’t have a clue where I was or what I was doing at any one time. I phoned them maybe once a week from a pay phone in halls or a shared landline when I was in a house share. And guess what? It was totally fine, because I was 18-21 years old and living my own adult life.

This is us. The whole family is on Life 360, by choice. Anyone can opt out anytime. I don't check frequently - occasionally if I want to call and to make sure she's at home and I won't be disturbing a lecture etc. Also v.useful when she is going home late. We all talked about it as a family when we did it - several years ago. Even then DD was given the choice.

Good grief, no, I don't track my two young adults. I check in with them regularly but find the idea of tracking intrusive. Anyway, elder son is currently studying in Taiwan so not sure what good tracking him would do.

Never tracked my kids, one finished uni, one going next year. I’d have hated to have been tracked by my parents. Not necessary and i’m surprised these young adults don’t turn it off.

This. Everyone saying "Oh it helps knowing DD is back home after a night out" And what if she isn't?! What exactly are you going to do?!

Guess what, sometimes students don't go straight home and to their beds after a night out!!! Who'd have thought it?!

The parents of the young man did have tracking and therefore found out via the news and not the police when they discovered his location was the street on the news. Tracking doesn’t prevent crimes. I’m surprised how many are doing it.

They had only arrived a week or so before, no one really knew each other. My dd didn’t know her, even though they shared the same floor, and she wouldn’t have noticed if someone was missing as there are so many students.

Not all parents speak to their dc every day, so how would anyone have noticed?

If I had seen my dd was in her room, and hadn’t left at all, yes I would be contacting her directly and urgently. Especially in freshers week. Had her parents known she was ill, they may have stepped up their contact with her, and checked in more often and known she was becoming seriously ill - it’s not their fault and they had no way of knowing she was so unwell.

It was horrendous for the students obviously. I think brand new students are in a very vulnerable position, no one knows to check on them. Even students that have been around for a long time may not have made any friends/have no one to do this.

I work in a university and parents tracking their kids at uni is a nightmare for staff.

we must get 20-30 calls a week where parents are asking us to check on their kid as they aren’t exactly where they expect them to be. It’s never ‘he hasn’t left his room in 5 days and I’m worried’ it’s more (my favourite to date) ‘I’m tracking my son and can see he’s been in the pub for 5 hours. Can you send security over to check he isn’t too drunk. I don’t want to call him as it will make him think I’m getting too involved’. Ok so just sent a security team down to Wetherspoons to embarrass your son instead.

universities don’t have enough staff to constantly check up on students who are not where they should be.

I have mixed feelings with this one.
As parent of a young child I yet have to wait for another 10 years for this but knowing the cases of crime that are rising or at least look that way I understand parent trying to know is something odd is going on. Once I said this, if something bad happen, nobody wants that, police won't be able to do much in the first hours because they follow their procedures and protocols.
As a normal person I would think is very invasive, specially if your parents are Helicopters that make a fuss about everything and I would decline the tracking. You don't need to monitor your offspring movements, you should have by that age a good relationship when you trust them.
As a bit of anxious person who is inclined to overthinking every now and them I would be giving me countless nights of insomnia if I see something odd in that tracker.
I suppose that when the time come I would have to make a decision but I see a bit of everything.

My DH and I share location. I use it to know when to turn the oven on. That’s literally as exciting as it gets.
Younger DD shares her location with me. She has panic disorder and is away at university. I don’t often check it tbh but I think it helps her more knowing where I am.
I think families and individuals can pretty much choose to operate how they like. I wouldn’t judge someone else for it.

I’m curious why the people that don’t track their DC are so vehemently opposed to others doing so, even when they’ve been told that the DC happily consented/like it.

So many accusations of stalking, bad parenting, causing anxiety and other mental health problems, being weirdos, depriving them of tools for self sufficient, molly coddling, damaging development etc etc

why so much hostility for something that other adults are all comfortable with?

Gosh, that’s ridiculous. Those students should be switching it off.

We are a family of trackers. Our children are under 18 anyway, but I track my partner, my child, my sisters and my niece. And they all track me.
there’s nothing nefarious in it, and we are all comfortable with the set up so it works for us.

Jesus. Yes, I can justimagine some Mum's doing this. What is wrong with them.. interestingly. Its doesnt seem to be men who do this.

Yes and when I had flu, my parents rang the landline in the halls corridor and got someone to check on me. They got me some water at the same time as I hadn’t got out of bed as was dehydrated. Good on you for being lucky and healthy.

I'm not opposed as long as it is done by consent.

It wouldn't have been my/our choice most of the time if there wasn't a very good reason, but everyone is different.

I'd have felt it too intrusive, as I said in my previous post. So would my DDs. So we have always only done it when there is a particular reason. That's just always been our choice.

Tracking family here. Kids are in their 20’s. Two live at home and DH and I are all over the place physically. Eldest two don’t share their locations with us as a rule but they have friends with whom they do. And they’ll often add us if they’re trecking or in a different time zone. I rarely check it, DS was sofa surfing for a semester at university and I never clocked, but it’s been invaluable a couple of times for eg: when DD aged 19 was in a dodgy South African home stay or various random late night pick ups.