Do you use trackers with your college kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids do not care. My college sophomore son just realized he had been sharing his location with his entire contact list for YEARS after one of his buddies told him. He just shrugged. He didn't care.

This!
The naysayers are coming at the topic from their frame of reference, an era that coined 'big brother is watching'.
Meanwhile GenZ and Alphas have been sharing their locations since snapchat came online, and they just don't care.

[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.

Why? What do you intend to do with this information?

Why are you the one getting campus alerts from 3,000 miles away?

If there’s an armed robbery at the In and Out Burger two blocks from your adult daughter’s residence…. you do what, exactly, when your location tracker tells you your daughter is two blocks away? Have a reassuring conversation? Tell her to shut her blinds and stay away from windows?

Trying to understand how tracking your adult relatives using TWO surveillance domains is in fact helpful

Have you had a child on a campus where there is a lockdown because of an active shooter? I have, and ir f—king scary. Not a rando store two miles off campus. Shooter on campus. Parents who shrug while students are being shot at UVA and criticize parents who try to make certain their kid isn’t dead have something wrong with them.

Horseshit.

Here’s what you do - you text your loved one in the very very very rare chance that there is an active shooter on their campus during the 4 yrs they are at school. They respond that they’re fine.

Which school is it where your kid experienced the active shooter firsthand, by the way? Bates?

For me, my teen was locked down when that loser shot up Burke. We texted and he told me where he was.

You cannot do shit from afar if your kid is in lockdown. Tracking gets you nothing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the record, parents get notified when occurrences happen ON campus. Not when they are across campus at Five Guys.

You can complain all you want about everything else in the world but don’t complain about parents caring about their loved ones. Be a better human. Honestly.

“Caring” =/= “surveillance

Nice try though

[Anonymous]

I think it totally depends on how it's being used. My mom would not have used it in a healthy manner. She would have stalked my location and God forbid I had a change of plans and was somewhere she didn't know I was going to be... she would have called and texted freaking out until I answered. Or if I didn't go to class she would blow up my phone about it. That's not healthy b

[Anonymous]

Real question for the “tracking = stalking” crew:

Your kid adds you on Find My. They do it on their own, without your asking. They don’t think it’s a big deal. What do you do in response? Demand they remove you?

[Anonymous]

Oddly my kids track me more on find my phone, then I track them. I can’t even sneak off to target without someone knowing I am there and asking for me to pick up something.

[Anonymous]

My kids don’t tack me and I don’t track my kids. You all are too much. And I believe your kids don’t mind, but that’s part of the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids don’t tack me and I don’t track my kids. You all are too much. And I believe your kids don’t mind, but that’s part of the problem.

But what is “the problem” exactly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids don’t tack me and I don’t track my kids. You all are too much. And I believe your kids don’t mind, but that’s part of the problem.

But what is “the problem” exactly?

It prevents them from learning how to actually communicate. If they'll be late, communicate that. Don't depend on someone looking up where you are. It denotes distrust. They should feel confident in making their own decisions, even if they make a mistake. Kids are less mature/grow up much later than in years past. They are over scheduled, over parented, always watched. It's sad that they think this is normal.
Gives a false sense of security. If they feel forced to share their location, they can do sneaky things like leave their phone, which is less safe.

Let's also differentiate between sharing select locations with friends and being tracked by your family.

And bottom line - it is none of your business if they are having a one night stand or staying out until 3am or ditching class and tanning on a sunny day. It's what young adults do to become full, responsible adults. Let them do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids don’t tack me and I don’t track my kids. You all are too much. And I believe your kids don’t mind, but that’s part of the problem.

But what is “the problem” exactly?

It prevents them from learning how to actually communicate. If they'll be late, communicate that. Don't depend on someone looking up where you are. It denotes distrust. They should feel confident in making their own decisions, even if they make a mistake. Kids are less mature/grow up much later than in years past. They are over scheduled, over parented, always watched. It's sad that they think this is normal.
Gives a false sense of security. If they feel forced to share their location, they can do sneaky things like leave their phone, which is less safe.

Let's also differentiate between sharing select locations with friends and being tracked by your family.

And bottom line - it is none of your business if they are having a one night stand or staying out until 3am or ditching class and tanning on a sunny day. It's what young adults do to become full, responsible adults. Let them do that.

I don't want my kid texting and driving.
My kid shares their location on findmy and they have done all these things. I don't call them out do it. I'm not stalking them on the app, and I'm not aware until they tell me about it the following week. The point is, they tell me.
Your kids don't tell you. You probably like being lied to. It helps with your delusion that you have a great family. You'd rather not know than know. I know your type.
It doesn't denote distrust. It's actually the opposite of what you are harping on and on and on and on about. It's a high-trust environment in our house. That's why sharing locations is not a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Real question for the “tracking = stalking” crew:

Your kid adds you on Find My. They do it on their own, without your asking. They don’t think it’s a big deal. What do you do in response? Demand they remove you?

I doubt the serial trolls on here even have kids. Lonely and bitter malcontents.

[Anonymous]

The "keeping 'find your phone' on is a serious problem" posters are the same ones who spent years on the toddler board telling others that potty training at 3 vs 2 was child abuse. Serious nuts who need to get a life and worry about their own business and things that really matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Real question for the “tracking = stalking” crew:

Your kid adds you on Find My. They do it on their own, without your asking. They don’t think it’s a big deal. What do you do in response? Demand they remove you?

I doubt the serial trolls on here even have kids. Lonely and bitter malcontents.

+1 A lone childless spinster troll has kept this thread alive for 5 pages.

[Anonymous]

we all share our location with each other, those in college and our teen in HS. It's just as much for them to know where we are as it is us needing to know where they are in case of an emergency. I don't regularly look at it, but I can tell you now that my one child goes to school 2000 miles away, it gives me peace of mind just to know that if something happened and they asked me if I knew where she was, I could tell. The biggest argument against it is it's too much knowledge, but honestly my kids share their location with their friends too so what is the harm in having their parents in on it too? Yes, we didn't have this growing up, but our own children HAVE had it, and unless we make it weird it's just another tool for us to have at our disposal. Make it a big deal and that's when it goes haywire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids do not care. My college sophomore son just realized he had been sharing his location with his entire contact list for YEARS after one of his buddies told him. He just shrugged. He didn't care.

This!
The naysayers are coming at the topic from their frame of reference, an era that coined 'big brother is watching'.
Meanwhile GenZ and Alphas have been sharing their locations since snapchat came online, and they just don't care.

That's not the issue though. Let's agree that 20 yr. old Charlotte "doesn't care" that she's viewable by everybody with a phone.

No, the problem is that Mommy can't cut the apron strings. Mommy can't let go. Mommy has an anxiety problem and panics about school shooters, falling off cliffs, hydroplaning into the guardrail on I-95, etc.

And if Mommy is tracking her baby and stays vigilant, naturally none of these very common things will happen to baby. So she tracks.