Parents utilize smartphones to track their children

Imagine you’re out one night hanging out with your friends. Your parents, worried for your safety, crash your night out and you learn that they found you through a tracker they installed on your phone. How would you feel? This may be the reality for many of you. Around 84 percent of parents have some sort of tracker on their kids, and the numbers don’t seem to be coming down anytime soon. 

Communication is key to a healthy relationship between a parent and their children.

“My oldest daughter is 22, and my youngest is 16,” said parent Lynn Perez. “We all share our location with each other. They don’t have an issue with it. I think if you have an open communication with your children and trust that they will be honest with you and you, then they won’t mind sharing it with you.”

In fact, some parents believe tracking their students can be beneficial to their relationships.

“It can actually improve trust after seeing a pattern that your child is actually where they said they would be,” parent Michelle Repose-Gee stated. “Not sure when I would stop tracking but as long as I’m paying your phone bill, I will continue to track your location.”

Some students agree with this perspective.

“Considering my parents don’t care, I wouldn’t mind [them tracking me],” said senior Vanessa Voyne, whose parents don’t track her location. However, when asked if she would track her own kids, she responded, “Yes; I’d give them freedom, but I would like to have their location in case of emergencies.”

“I think when my parents have my location, they just care about my safety,” agreed sophomore Ethan Lunes. “If they worry about something bad happening to me they would know exactly where I am. It does not break my trust because I’m their kid and they just want to make sure I’m ok.”

Ultimately, parents and students both agree that trust between each other is key to ensuring both parties are happy.

“Make sure they know it’s for their own safety and don’t use it to spy on kids,” said parent Sanja Bajovic. “They need privacy too. And they will block you. It’s all about trust.”