Do you use trackers with your college kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid goes to school in LA and there are weekly police advisories of incidents. Par for the course for a major city and I usually don’t pay any attention to the small ones. When there’s an ongoing incident though, I check on find my to see where my kid is relative to the incidents. If they went to college in the middle of cowtown USA, I’d probably never use the feature. Context matters.

See this is the type of thing that feels like an invasion of privacy.

How is it an invasion of privacy when my college kid says 'I'm giving you access on findmy so you can see where I'm at' and 'I like that you can check on me sometimes' ??

Do you all not text each other? That’s how we check in. “Hey, how’ve you been? What are you up to?”

The idea that parents need to know their adult kid’s exact location - is a new desire and now people have become so used to it, they are uncomfortable forgoing it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Based on the responses on this thread those families with open, communicative relationships with their kids use these tools and It Is No Biggie Whatsoever because the lines of communication are wide open in the family.

Those families with very closed, cut off, non- communicative relationships with their kids can only think of findmy or other tracker as a surreptitious unhealthy stalking tool.

There can be too much communication in families.

[Anonymous]

I used “find my” for my kid’s phone when she was in 8th and 9th and it was fairly new for kids to be on outings with friends without an adult nearby, especially for things like post-performance trips to Denny’s with the theater group when seniors we were driving a car-full of younger students late at night. I haven’t bothered in ages, but my kid is also very good about texting when the group is on the way home, for example, so I’ve had no need. Definitely would not be tracking a college student. I will probably ask that she text me when she arrives at her location after a long drive, like returning to school on her own.

I can see its use for something like a solo hiking trip or solo overseas travel, maybe set up a plan for a once a day “hi I’m alive” text and if you don’t receive that, check their location. But otherwise, tracking your young adult kid in their day-to-day life constantly is just perpetuating your own anxiety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a family we all have location sharing on our phones but no life 360. I find myself checking when college son is traveling to make sure he arrives safely to destination and to time dinner/meals when he is on his way home. Other than that I quickly discovered that using it more frequently created way too much anxiety and was a major invasion of privacy. If he is going somewhere unusual he will just tell me - I do not need to know where he is every moment of the day. That is stalking

Yeah, your approach seems normal to me.

In the WaPo comments, the people could only seem to think “tracking means stalking” with no in between. I think one isn’t a stalker if you use it in a healthy way like you do.

OP

We are like this pp. We all have Life 360 and share our location on Google. This includes mom, dad and "kids". When our oldest kids graduated high school we told them they could stop sharing if they wanted. Both have kept it on. This includes our dd that just graduated college and moved across the country and an adult in the military who keeps it active when allowed by their command. Their choice. We all tend to use it if we have called and not gotten through to them at a prearranged time. So, if dd tells me to call her Sunday at 4pm and I do but she doesn't answer I might check her location and see that she is still at the grocery store and now I'm not worried. She will check my location before calling to make sure I'm not driving/at school/at the doctors office.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a family we all have location sharing on our phones but no life 360. I find myself checking when college son is traveling to make sure he arrives safely to destination and to time dinner/meals when he is on his way home. Other than that I quickly discovered that using it more frequently created way too much anxiety and was a major invasion of privacy. If he is going somewhere unusual he will just tell me - I do not need to know where he is every moment of the day. That is stalking

Yeah, your approach seems normal to me.

In the WaPo comments, the people could only seem to think “tracking means stalking” with no in between. I think one isn’t a stalker if you use it in a healthy way like you do.

OP

We are like this pp. We all have Life 360 and share our location on Google. This includes mom, dad and "kids". When our oldest kids graduated high school we told them they could stop sharing if they wanted. Both have kept it on. This includes our dd that just graduated college and moved across the country and an adult in the military who keeps it active when allowed by their command. Their choice. We all tend to use it if we have called and not gotten through to them at a prearranged time. So, if dd tells me to call her Sunday at 4pm and I do but she doesn't answer I might check her location and see that she is still at the grocery store and now I'm not worried. She will check my location before calling to make sure I'm not driving/at school/at the doctors office.

Weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on the responses on this thread those families with open, communicative relationships with their kids use these tools and It Is No Biggie Whatsoever because the lines of communication are wide open in the family.

Those families with very closed, cut off, non- communicative relationships with their kids can only think of findmy or other tracker as a surreptitious unhealthy stalking tool.

Not true. I have a college aged DC that I don’t track at all but they call me and text daily and I know who their friends are and what they have planned for the day. No need to track at all. One thing is to track on a long distance drive but to do it daily and then say “why were you out at a club instead of the library” seems a bit much. That is where it becomes stalker material and not letting a young adult grow up to make their own mistakes. As for the mom of the 31 year old, when does it stop? At 31, some of here were already married with possibly a child. Just seems like you need to let go at some point.

Jumping the shark. Having the access and actually being a stalker like you describe are two very different things.

[Anonymous]

I truly cannot believe the BS excuses for all of this tracking!
It's unhealthy and insane. My kids and my husband deserve privacy. I deserve privacy. We owe it to our kids to let them be independent adults ON THEIR OWN.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I truly cannot believe the BS excuses for all of this tracking!
It's unhealthy and insane. My kids and my husband deserve privacy. I deserve privacy. We owe it to our kids to let them be independent adults ON THEIR OWN.

LOL, the righteousness. Google and Apple both know where you are, all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I truly cannot believe the BS excuses for all of this tracking!
It's unhealthy and insane. My kids and my husband deserve privacy. I deserve privacy. We owe it to our kids to let them be independent adults ON THEIR OWN.

Wow such strong feelings about something that works for some families and doesn’t affect you.

[Anonymous]

Some of the problem here is framing.

“Tracking my young adult child” sounds a lot worse than “Young adult child opted to share location.”

[Anonymous]

We all can “Find My iPhone” each other if we want, but we usually don’t unless there is a reason. For example, my DS was driving home from college (8+ hour drive) and I wanted to know his progress without calling him (so as not to call while he was driving), so I checked on Find My iPhone. Otherwise, I don’t usually track.

[Anonymous]

My teens have to have "find my phone enabled. if they comply they are free to go as they please. My kids are super social. On a typical Saturday they'll be out with friends for 12-15 hours.

For example, my son will eat Saturday breakfast out at a diner, go play a round of golf, go swimming, go shopping, go to a baseball game, stop in at 2 friends' homes and a party and come home by 1am.
I don't ask him to check in at any point in time. The trade off is he has to keep "find My phone" on. He is happy to oblige. I don't think he could have more freedom if he tried. I probably "track" his whereabouts once every 3 months or if he doesn't show up at 1am.
he's an a student in top rigor courses and generally spends all Sunday studying. It works for him and for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I truly cannot believe the BS excuses for all of this tracking!
It's unhealthy and insane. My kids and my husband deserve privacy. I deserve privacy. We owe it to our kids to let them be independent adults ON THEIR OWN.

LOL, the righteousness. Google and Apple both know where you are, all the time.

Thinking the same! Google, Apple, all the random apps on your phone all know your every move. They know your patterns and where you go on a regular basis. And you’re worried about my son knowing where I ate lunch? LMAO

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I truly cannot believe the BS excuses for all of this tracking!
It's unhealthy and insane. My kids and my husband deserve privacy. I deserve privacy. We owe it to our kids to let them be independent adults ON THEIR OWN.

LOL, the righteousness. Google and Apple both know where you are, all the time.

Thinking the same! Google, Apple, all the random apps on your phone all know your every move. They know your patterns and where you go on a regular basis. And you’re worried about my son knowing where I ate lunch? LMAO

These issues aren't related at all. Google doesn't track me if I'm 5 minutes late for a phone call. You can keep making excuses for what you think is appropriate when it's not. It's bizarre. And even worse that you keep defending it.

[Anonymous]

I liked having for my daughter, especially because she had no roommate and when she started driving places alone. She also runs alone frequently . I did not check it even twice a month, but felt like it was a safety feature. (She obviously knew, and had given permission on her phone to share location).

She recently stopped allowing that. Perhaps because she is seeing someone seriously (though I do not question where she spends the night). She is in grad school, so I need to just accept her decision.