Does everyone track their children?

[CaNGCNk]

Is everyone tracking their child now? I had a few people surprised on another group because I said I don’t agree with tracking my children. In school they were talking about. I can see the appeal for a younger child a toddler maybe or a child thats a runner. But are we all just tracking our school age children now? (even if that doesn’t apply)

I don’t. We have an AirTag in a sports bag. But that’s tracking the bag when it inevitably gets left on a bus or at a swimming pool not tracking the child. His phone mainly lives next to the tv which is unhelpful.
Edited to add DS12 for context.

When they were in secondary which is when they got their first phone we were actually tracking the phone in case it was lost or stolen we would know where it was. It also had an app on it that took a photo when someone entered the wrong passcode. The photo uploads to the cloud so even without the phone we could see the photo.

The phone automatically turned to silent mode just before they should have been going through the school gates and turned back on when they would definitely be out of the school gates so there was no need for them to get their phone out of their bag. Less likely to be taken from their hands. They walked to school so sometimes if they were running much later than normal I would look on the map to see where they were. This was a handful of times throughout their entire schooling.

I think there is a difference between people having the ability to see where someone is and always checking their location. My children's lives are not that interesting that I need to be looking at the map, nor is my life so boring I need to look. When we had their location, they also had ours, it was a two way street.

That both kind of still sound like tracking, we don’t use anything including phone apps.

Yes for both teens. Will turn it off when they are 18 unless they are happy for it to be on. Definitely be turned off if they leave for Uni. Like PP I only look if I need to because they haven't come home at agreed time or if we are due to meet up somewhere.

I don't because DD is 7 so I generally know where she is.

When she goes to secondary school it will be different. I'm currently torn between the comfort of being able to see where she is vs how I intrusive that is, knowing I'd have hated it as a kid. Fortunately I have a number of years before I need to worry about it!

My whole family tracks each other. DH disabled it by accident and they all reinstalled it. We all live in London and the DC are mid/ late 20’s. DD2 saw DD1 was at home and came over to go shopping in my mamas fridge for Sunday lunch, I checked it later that night as DD1 was in a long uber home. And I checked it just now as DS and DH are meeting centrally and buses are completely random (I’m moaning about it on another thread)
It was new technology when they were teenagers and DD first shared her location when she was with a friend fitting at 2am in Trafalgar Square waiting for an ambulance.

DS1 is 10, no we don't track him, he doesn't own a phone. He walks to school and back and plays out.

I didn't. I thought and still think it is a heinous thing to do. I refuse to be tracked by anyone myself too.

I expected mine to tell me where they were and I also expected that from time to time they might be somewhere that they didn't want me to know about and I was happy to live with that, rather than track them. They were to have their phones on them and if they ever had a problem, found themselves in difficulty, they knew that I would pick up, no matter where I was, what time it was or what I was doing.

We discussed risk, sensible behaviour out and about and I did everything I could to ensure that they wouldn't find themselves in dangerous places or situations.

No

DS13 has an app that means we can see his location if we log in. If that happens it sends him a notification. We don't really use it. It's there for emergencies. I would use it if we needed to get hold of him for something important and couldn't.

We all track each other with find my iPhone, the teenager likes to check where we are and is happy to have his location available. The youngest has a watch with gps and I can see where they are too. We live rurally and can be held up due to road accidents (the main road to our village gets shut) so need to be able to see where we all are and have communication about what's happening. It can be disabled if requested. We are a close and open family and see no issue with using apps in this way.

DH puts an AirTag in DS's jacket when they're skiing. Otherwise no.

No, never have and apart from a handful of very specific circumstances I can't see why I ever would.

I don't judge people who do, but I don't think it should be the norm/default position.

Dh, ds13 and I can track each other. I mainly look at it to see where they are on their way home so I can have tea ready. I realise in the olden days they would have called me when they were on their way home. Sometimes I check where they are if they are out for a run or a cycle. Occasionally I check in on dh to see if he's left his office if I'm at home so I can tidy up and look like I've been productive all day while he's been at work.
I do occasionally look just of out curiosity but not often. Dh is either at work, the gym or the golf course. Ds is either at school, the football pitches or a friend's house. It's never very exciting.

I hope that if I found myself checking where there were many many times during the day I'd turn it off because that's not healthy.

I do slightly worry that teaching children that it's normal to be tracked leaves them open to abusive behaviour from future romantic partners.

Thats one of the reasons why I don’t do it, I don’t like normalising tracking people, and if a partner wanted to track me theyd get told to F off 😂

secondary school age girls - no phones. no trackers. we live in central London and I think it's more common not to track here... I might be more inclined to track if we lived in the middle of nowhere.

We dont track DS11 at all. In fact we dont track anyone. I would hate to be tracked and think it is intrusive. DS11 regularly forgets his phone when he goes out the door for school anyway so would be fairly pointless alot of the time!

No. Eldest are 11 and 13.

We all have each other on find my iphone and they can see us and we can see them and each other. the older 2 are 18 and 19 and if they asked to disable it, it wouldnt be a problem.

No-one is sat there checking where they are and questioning if they arent where we think they should be.
For us it is handy to see if someone is nearly here eg to get tea on, or if someone loses a phone in the house we can play a sound etc.

I'm not bothered if DH or the kids know where I am so its never been an issue for us and gives us maybe a head start of where to start looking if someone went missing or lost a phone completely.

100% agree with all of this.

However my daughters (28 and 32) share locations with each other 🙄

And they share with all their friends too. I think it’s weird! And I’ve learned from a teenage girls mum, that this can be really hurtful when “all the group” goes to the same location, but someone has been left out and they can see that.

I can see where this has usefulness, but not non stop tracking.

We track music equipment because it is a rental and the full price is £4500, so we have to pay if lost or damage.

Well the bag only goes with him 3 times a week and can contain about £500 of kit which I do t want to loose. So I’m scarcely tracking every move.

I don't know anyone who tracks a member of their family, and it's not something
I would ever consider. When I'm working at night, I always ring my husband as I'm leaving so that he will know when to expect me, and he lets me know when he's due home if he's out. When my daughter was living at home, I always expected her to let me know where she was going and roughly when to expect her to be home, or when she wanted to be picked up.

I probably will track both my children when they start secondary school. They will be coming home to an empty house for around 2.5 hours 3 days a week, and I want to know where they are.

I have no issue with tracking in the absence of abusive behaviour, as long as the adults consent to it. DH and I don’t track each other.

Why is it popular when kids ‘got by fine’ before? Who knows. New tech is attractive. Kids not as resilient as they used to be. Maybe the latter is true, but no parent is going to go let their child be the guinea pig in building that if that are lacking.