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)

Me, my DH, my sister and my mother are all in a Life 360 circle. I don't go anywhere I wouldn't want other people to know I was going so I don't see the issue? It's so that if something happens, there's a record, it's not like we stare at it all day.

What if you’re planning a surprise and visiting potential venues? What if you want to do something without explaining it?

Nope, never seen the point, I think some kids prefer it mainly because your parents don't have to message or, horror of horrors, phone you when you're out with your mates to check where you are.

I'm satisfied with being told plans and being messaged if they change. That worked fine with oldest and they're at uni now. If a kid is determined to lie to you they can probably get a burner & leave their phone at a mate's house for a sleepover' anyhow.

Then you turn off the tracking…

The grey area is that you can not track your kids but can also understand (or maybe just not be too bothered) why some people do. And vice versa.

I have friends in my life who do track their kids and some who don't. I don't think any of them give much thought to what the others do.
It really only seems to be on Mumsnet that it is a source of such enormous disagreement.

DC have them in their sports bags when they go to school tournaments. We never get the notifications that they’re back at school so were always the last to pick up. With the air tags in their bags I can see when they get close to school.

Same tor school/Girl Guiding residentials.

I don't track DS (young adult) but he likes to check in and see where I am!

Personally I would have found it an invasion of privacy when I was a teen, so I wouldn't expect to be able to track my child. But each to their own.

I really like this. You are so right. I will continue to have find my phone so I can see which ditch, if the worst comes to the worst. You've very helpfully enabled me to identify where I am on the parenting continuum.

I dont track my kids now they are 18. Im off the hook now!

Hilariously my elderly parents track dh bike so they can follow his long rides on their maps. It’s very sweet!

I don't track my dc. School having no phone rule helped. Ds1 knows he is allowed to use the school office phone to call me, if he is confused. Or want to go somewhere else after school. He has a normal watch and he has 30min extra to get home (in case the busses run late). Twice I checked the traffic update and saw traffic incidents. So I extended the getting home time based on that.

On or off, unless your location is monitored constantly, you aren’t being constantly tracked.

Your location is being constantly tracked if it is on. Whether or not someone is constantly looking, you wont actually know.

I don't and I have a 15 year old girl and a 19 year old son.

Wasn't really a thing when mine were really young, but now they're adults we have each other on life360, but I usually only look if they've been out longer than stated & not replied to messages, or when they're going to & from holiday with their Dad, as we think it's funny for me to text them to tell him to slow down. The first year we had it (he doesn't btw) he was so confused as to how I knew his speed!!

Yes, I track, it’s just easier. Eg DD isn’t back from school yet. She’s 16, I’m not worried, I can’t be bothered to call her just for her to not answer her phone anyway, so I’ve just checked Life360 and can see she’s at a coffee shop.

Also, when she goes out with her mates I find it useful to see where she is when it’s late at night.

The kids don’t find it intrusive. They know no different and they track me too. They find it mental that our parents didn’t/couldn’t track us!

We were in a family plan, so could see each other. Then, when I got divorced, my husband cut me off from the plan. For a while my daughters used to regularly update me where they were "I'm on the bus, Mum!" etc until we all joined Find My Friend. I don't think any of us use it a lot. I tend to use it when they're on their way home, so I know when to expect them, or seeing where they are when they're on holiday and stuff. None of us have the negative connotations of spying - although we're well past the troublesome teenage years, when they turned their phones off or left them at friends' houses or whatever, to keep me from knowing what they were getting up to!

Actually, I was checking where one of my daughters was, when I spotted that my husband was somewhere he shouldn't have been, which set off the whole divorce in the first place!

i know many people do these days , id no not and mine are teens and young adults now,funnily enough they track me and i track the cat.

Yes! All those who possess a phone have the others location. Ours (parents) included.

Yes DS12, it gives him a level of independence and me some reassurance of where he is. It's a compromise that works for us.

I wonder if there is a difference for people living in cities and rural areas. I live rurally, kids just starting driving age. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have findmy or life360 as a family in our area. When they are covering long distances on country lanes at night it’s mainly used to know when everyone is likely to be home for dinner. “Tracking” is not the same as having the facility there and using it occasionally with everyone’s consent.

My daughter was the same until she was 13 when she got her first phone. I never tracked..

Yes I do but not at school just if we are on holiday or in a place they can get lost . I lost my auto act son at Disney and don’t wish it on anyone .

The issue with phone tracking teens to check they are where they are supposed to be which hasn’t come up yet, is that it might actually make the few who do go off-plan less safe as they might feel that they need to arrange for their phone to sleepover at Bella’s house as expected while their body is partying at Noah’s…..

We’re very rural and don’t use it. There are 3/4 of DS’s group of friends who use tracking, but they’re all from the (small) town rather than quite as rural as our village.

That said I think phone usage for kids is stricter here generally. The primary school HT is married to a chap who worked/worked for CEOPS and he does a talk every year for parents of Y4/5 (and she bribes people to it with cakes and biscuits plus activities in another room for kids supervised by school staff) before more kids get their first phone in Y5/6.

It puts the fear of god into parents about some apps and features. There was also an incident before lockdown where a man of 26 kept turning up where some teens were hanging about and it came out that he had a couple of them on snapmaps. Pretty much none of the teens use it now, and anyone suggesting it gets jokingly called that guys name.

I do track my teens for safety/convenience reasons and they prefer this, because it means they can get away with fewer updates if they’re out. However, if they actually wanted to be efficient and communicative about updating me when out late, I’d be more than happy to drop the tracking.

The day they each turn 18, I will stop tracking them and I think not to do this is very weird.