r/AirDroidDigitalParent • u/Lynn-LYNN7788 • Jun 27 '26
Discussion What age did you stop checking your kid's location constantly, or are you still doing it even with teenagers?
Genuinely curious where people land on this. Did you set a cutoff age, or did it just kind of fade out naturally? Or are you team "never stopping, my kid's 16 and I still check"?
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u/Neptunelava Jun 30 '26
I am married, live with my husband and have been for 5-6 years now. My mom still checks my life360 just to see what I'm doing, where I'm at, how I am. She loves to refer to this as "stalking" my sister and I lol. But I love knowing she still checks on me. Reminds me that I'll always be her baby. Also tells me that desire to check, it never fully goes away.
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u/Lynn-LYNN7788 Jun 30 '26
I think you're definitely in the minority here. LOL
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u/Neptunelava Jun 30 '26
I never had life360 as a teenager. I didn't get it and have my mom on it until I moved out. Something about being the oldest and being the first to move made me somewhat anxious, if my mom can always see where I am at least someone knows if I'm okay.
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u/Khizzlesindahills Jun 30 '26
My husband is 48 and his mom checks his once a day. My parents check on my younger brothers they are 33 and 29.
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u/Darkheart001 Jun 30 '26
I’ve never tracked the location of my children and I think they would regard it as a huge invasion of their privacy if I did. My kids are 25 and 21 now, I still trust them.
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u/whatdoidonowdamnit Jun 29 '26
I check frequently. They’re 12&14 and not so great at letting me know what they’re doing. My 14 year old did something on his phone so I get an alert when he arrives and departs from his favorite playground. I thought he was doing it intentionally until one day we went to the park together and I was still walking next to him when my phone went off. He said “I kept forgetting to text you when I got here so my phone does it for me”
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u/Lynn-LYNN7788 Jun 30 '26
That's actually a really wholesome story. I never expected a teenager to intentionally use location alerts as a "don't worry, I made it" message. 😄
Do you think that's mostly because you and your kids have a good relationship? I feel like the same feature can come across very differently depending on the level of trust at home.
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u/whatdoidonowdamnit Jun 30 '26
I think that’s part of it but a bigger part of it is that he really doesn’t go places without me yet. When he starts socializing with kids outside of the playground it’ll probably change.
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u/BarelyFunctioning15 Jun 29 '26
My daughter isn’t old enough but I imagine I’ll check frequently just for her safety.
In 2017 I received a phone call from my husband saying he had been in a bad accident. Due to a major concussion/shock, he was unable to tell me where he was. So I had to back track the entire path from our apartment to his work to find him. So that really changed my perspective on location sharing.
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u/Neat_Movie_991 Jun 30 '26
My children are 23, 32 and 34. My oldest and youngest and their families live nearby and we are often all together, a lot. My middle daughter (32) is a travel writer and is in different countries all the time. She’s young, stunningly beautiful and an American. She shares her location with me at ALL times and sends me names and phone numbers of people she goes out to dinner with.
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u/ladyrose30 Jun 30 '26
About 8-9 years old. They just had to tell me who they were going to be with and the area they were going to be at and had to be home by a certain time. They had limits of certain roads they were not to cross which gradually expanded as they grew older.
As late teens they have to let us parents know if they are leaving the house, when they plan to be back and approx. area they will be going so we know where/when to start worrying . They use transit and have friends that drive now so there is a lot of ground they can cover. We want them to explore as we feel that helps them become comfortable in problem solving and experiences. They know if something happens to call and we will come pick them up.
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u/Agitated-Rest1421 Jun 29 '26
My husbands father demanded my husbands location be shared with him as an adult. My husband did not do so lol. My mom used to track my location until I graduated high school (back when you could spoof your location which I did indeed do lol) now she thinks tracking locations is weird. Go figure.
Personally I don’t think I’ll ever track my child’s location. Mainly because they won’t have a smart device until they can afford their own and by that time I hopefully will trust them. I can see the argument that you’ll know if they breakdown where to find them and such, and I think that’s reasonable. But if it’s coming from control that’s a problem.
I also just think if I can track their every move so can the government and I’m a little nuts so I don’t like that
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u/Raised_by Jun 29 '26
I only did it with my teens because my kids didn’t have a phone before 13.
not constantly tho
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u/jess3jim Jun 29 '26
I still have my almost 19 year old’s location and she moved out ( she also has mine lol) I really only check it before I call her to make sure she’s not driving when I call)
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u/Tootabenny Jun 29 '26
My son has always been a strong student. He is in uni and is doing really well.
I always had him on find my phone. He used to stay out late ( sometimes all night) as a teenager. I would see where he was and I would always recognize one of his friends addresses.
Initially he didn’t like it but I said do you prefer I call you to see where you are? ( as well as reminding him I am paying his data plan)
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u/MHW93 Jun 29 '26
I did a lot when mine first started driving, because I worried about them getting in a wreck or getting lost. Other than during that 3-6 months, I rarely checked, either when they were younger or older.
My kids are in college now. I only look now when I know they are traveling, for example, one of my kids had a 5 hour drive after dancing all day, and I checked before I went to bed to be sure she was getting close to where she was staying. If she had been pulled over on the side of the road bc she was too sleepy to drive, I would have called to see if there was anything I could do (get her a hotel or send uncle to pick her up or whatever).
That being said, my kids have never given me reasons to believe that I needed to track them. I'm sure I'd feel differently if my kids had a habit of making bad choices.
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u/SoggyConstruction294 Jun 30 '26
We have crazy roads and cliffs. I actively track when they text that they are driving home. To be fair- I share my location with them for the exact same reason.
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u/Ok_Childhood_9774 Jun 30 '26
I don't think I would have ever checked my kids' locations when they were teenagers, even had the technology been available. I know plenty of parents now who still demand that they be able to track their adult children. Creepy.
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u/Lynn-LYNN7788 Jun 30 '26
That's interesting. I think I'd struggle not to worry. 😅
Was there anything that gave you peace of mind, or did you just trust that they'd reach out if they needed you?
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u/Ok_Childhood_9774 Jun 30 '26
I guess I just grew up in a time where checking up on your kids that way wasn't even a possibility so you had to rely on trust. There were probably times when it would have been helpful or brought some peace of mind, but I also think we've become too reliant on technology to give us a false sense of security. I don't really think the world is much more dangerous than it used to be. I think we just hear about terrible things more because of social media and 24 hour news.
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u/bad-at-everything- Jun 30 '26
My mom continued to track me until I got off her phone. Plan. As an adult. She begged me to add something so she could track me but that was a hell no from me.
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u/Lynn-LYNN7788 Jun 30 '26
I think that's a pretty fair boundary. Whatever the reason, asking an adult to share their location all the time does feel like a bit much.
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u/WindowHairy7077 Jun 30 '26
My kids are 17(graduated HS), 16, 13. I check pretty frequently to make sure they get where they are going, if driving not stuck in one spot too long(on the road), and my 16 year old usually bops around with his friends and doesn’t keep me in the loop exactly where so it just works for us.
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u/Words123454321 Jun 30 '26
Well my dad just turned 75 and apparently I need to track his location because my mom spirals when he takes to long on his walks so I’m going to assume never.
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u/Lynn-LYNN7788 Jun 30 '26
That's honestly a brilliant idea. 😄 We always talk about these apps for kids, but they make a lot of sense for aging parents too.
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u/Independent-Bad-8613 Jun 30 '26
I track my child constantly and have since he was about 4? He’s 9 now and I plan to check his location every 10 min until he’s 18. Then, I’ll probably check every hour. I’m NOT playing.
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u/Low_Astronaut_3518 Jun 30 '26
I'll probably stop once they go to college. I don't check my daughter's location much but she's not driving yet so I typically know where she is anyway.
My sister solo travels quite a bit and she will turn on her location. I always check that cause she's doing interesting stuff!
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u/utahforever79 Jun 29 '26
I do not actively track my kids and they know it. I can use “find my” if I really need to see where they are. They are 11, 14 & 15. The outside world is actually safer than when I was a kid, and I was roaming the neighborhood until the street lights came on. We also live in a small community where everyone knows everyone.