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Just seen the ad for this tech supposedly for tracking your kids schoolbags....unspoken elephant in the room is that it also allows you to track the child hopefully attached to the bag.
where does this forum stand on providing trackable devices (inc phones) to kids for peace of mind? I'd like to give my nearly-10 year old the same amount of freedom and independence I had as a kid, and one of the ways I can see of doing this is if he has a phone so that
a) he can call us if lost, worried, late etc
b) we can call him if he's late, not where supposed to be etc
c) potentially track him or the device itself down
any experiences of pros / cons / ethical issues / device selection?
My view
- you're better to teach your kids how to deal with the world around them. Risk management skills, social skills etc. IMO the only two things that have changed since my childhood is the volume of vehicles and fewer folk who would speak out with or engage with kids.
- tracking devices are too easily removed. Next to useless imo.
- a phone could do all that.
Had this discussion with my wife recently. We're considering giving our kids a phone to go to the park on their own, but they may lose it. They make these watches that you can use to track and they can call a single number, which are a possibility.
The park is about 500m away and the kids are 6 and almost 9. So it's not a question of enforcing discipline - the kids won't want to remove them to get up to mischief - it's just a question of safety and practicality. I just want to know where they are. In 'the old days' I'm sure parents would also have wanted to know - but now we do have a technological solution, why not use it? When we were 9 or 10 my dad would wander all over the estate looking for us - sometimes took quite a while. We didn't even have watches. Much easier to just call us.
It's different if the kids are 14.
Not against tracking kids at all, especially if it means they get to spend more time playing outside. But I don't see the point in a dedicated device when a second-hand phone can do the same thing and has the added ability to make calls/texts.
It is all context to where you live and how your kids respond to all this but....
Our kids have walked to school since 7 on their own - no major roads to cross, all on pavement or park.
Since age 9 one has walked a mile across Dunblane, road crossings and quite complex route.
Since age 8/9 they are all off to park, friends etc, and in Killin they were often out of sight in woods and park from age 6/7.
When they get to secondary, age 11, they all walk everywhere to school, friends, Scouts, park etc. The primary age trips and park plays prepared them for this, and my lot have huge road awareness and weirdo radar going on. They all have a phone.
Age 11/12 they also get train to Stirling and go to town with pals, where they really need their weirdo radar and risk assessment head on when visiting the gaming shop in an 'interesting' part of town...
Age 13 they get put on train from Dunblane, change at Edinburgh (a station they know) and go to Retford in Nottinghamshire to visit grandparents.
Eldest at 16 will do that this summer, then go over to Newton le Willows to see other grandfather....
It is all progression for me. The technology helps, but I am much more reliant on their skills and judgement, not the technology. My fear is what holds me back - not their skills.
My kids will almost certainly lose a phone. They don't wear trousers with pockets (being girls) and even if they did the pockets would be small enough for a phone to be big and bulky.
It is all progression for me. The technology helps, but I am much more reliant on their skills and judgement, not the technology.
Be realistic though. No-one's saying the technology functions *instead* of the skills. You clearly need the skills too unless you are expecting to talk them through everything on the phone.
I'd give my kids a phone for situations like:
1) I want to call them to tell them it's time to come in.
2) I want to call them to check where they are (they are still young after all)
3) They go with one of their friends somewhere and they then get ditched and don't know where they are (the friends are idiots, and kids are kids).
4) They decide they want to go to Asda or something else whilst out.
etc.
They'd get more freedom than I would otherwise feel comfortable giving them - this will encourage independence and self reliance, not diminish it. So that by the time they are 12 or 13 they can go to town or take the bus to a friend's house etc.
My view
– you’re better to teach your kids how to deal with the world around them. Risk management skills, social skills etc. IMO the only two things that have changed since my childhood is the volume of vehicles and fewer folk who would speak out with or engage with kids.
– tracking devices are too easily removed. Next to useless imo.
– a phone could do all that.
Matt speaks a lot of sense IMO.
Give em’ a phone with a DD on the screen if you are that bothered by it.
Im not a fan of anyone tracking anyone TBH, child nor adult.
Im not a fan of anyone tracking anyone TBH, child nor adult.
My missus and I track each other via phones. It's great. Saves pointless and potentially dangerous/distracting "Have you left yet? What time will you be home?" calls or texts when driving and cycling.
Part of the condition with my kids and their mobiles is they have tracking left on, it’s handy to see where they are if they’re late and forget to let us no. My kids have the same freedom as I did my 14 year old goes to Newcastle with her friends which is 3 times the distance it was for me to go as a kid. I can keep check to see where is without pestering her and know she will contact me if there’s any issues. I got mugged when I went for the first time at her age and had no wash way to get in touch with my parents so had to get the train back with a smashed tooth,
As girls clothes have pockets in them too they have no issues carry one either.
Matt speaks a lot of sense IMO.
He does but technology doesn’t stop any of that happening.
Agreed, but I’m not a massive fan of being “watched”
But they’re your kids and your family and I guess everyone involved agrees to it, so that’s yours and their rights to agree to it.
No one is being ‘watched’ I very rarely check unless they’re late, the wife is worried where they are or they may not have told us. My eldest is very good she still rings to ask for permission to go somewhere other than where she said she was going. The youngest not so much she’ll still think nothing of going to different area without telling us but since getting her own phone a few months ago it’s getting better.
I think the last time I used it was a few weeks ago when my daughter was helping with the school production, it was getting on for 10pm and she hadn’t answered the text we sent so we checked to see where she was so I could head there to see if she was there.
This is very possibly my solution to not wanting to spend 400 quid a year on spot tracking and not wanting to carry an expensive phone that will only run out of battery while doing epic DIY Audaxes...
My wife, my oldest daughter and I have tracking on on our phones, a mixture of Android and Apple so we use Life360. It is free, uses the tech already within the phone and, frankly, seems daft not to.
We use it to cut down on unnecessary calls and for piece of mind, nothing to do with paranoia about murderers everywhere.
Yesterday my 12yr old was out sledging with friends. She was was late coming back , I was going to go out to look for her but checked her phone first and I could see she was already on her way walking back. Job done.
Our younger daughter is nearly 10 and starting to venture further afield with friends. She uses the spare phone and takes it with her if she is going to be out and about for any length of time
It's not exactly new stuff on phones and comes as standard with Android at least. When mini aracer came home "without his phone" I went to Google Find My Device to find out where it was - it turned out it was logged into the home wifi network! I haven't set anything up to enable this - it hadn't even occurred to me to have tracking on his phone - simply logged the phone into Google using his e-mail account which I have control of (he doesn't ever use it for e-mail, it's simply there for things where he needs an e-mail account to set stuff up, like Xbox). So no I don't actively track my kids, but like others above I can if and when I want to (at least the oldest who has a phone, though he's the only one with that level of independence anyway - but realistically it just shows where his phone is, not where he is and that isn't necessarily the same thing).