The first time my daughter left our home to walk to school on her own, I felt sick. She was ten and even though she is a sensible girl, it didn’t stop me from fretting. Would she cross the road between home and her primary school safely? Would she be able to handle any situation that arose, like a stranger talking to her? More than anything, it just felt weird to be allowing her out on her own, when from the moment she’d been born, one of our main jobs as parents was ensuring she was supervised and cared for 24/7. We were hard-wired to not let her out of our sight unless she was with another trusted adult, and now we needed to just casually allow her to saunter off down the road, alone.
We know from the get-go that encouraging our children to be independent, in a safe way, is an important step. In fact it’s just as vital as weaning, potty-training, learning to read and all of those early milestones. Knowing something is inevitable doesn’t make it easy to navigate but we gradually got used to her walking to and from primary school.
Now, a year later, my daughter is at secondary school and has to use London transport - getting a bus and a train - by herself to get there. Before her first day, I downloaded the tracking app Life360 on her phone and my phone, having heard friends talking about using it. The app would allow me to be able to see where she was, at all times, and would alert me whenever she arrived at school or left school. Just downloading it made me relax a little, knowing we could check she’d caught the right train or made it to school on time – it felt a bit like a digital security blanket to ease us into this next phase of parenting.
And I’m not alone - Life360 is used by 32 million people in more than 140 countries. It’s currently the eighth most downloaded social networking app on the App Store. Meanwhile every iPhone comes with the free Find My Friends app and the kids’ smartwatch market is booming. More people than ever are choosing to track their kids’ movements.
One of those people is Sarah Dawson from Scotland who bought her daughter a smartwatch when she was six. ‘She gets a school bus home, so it allows her to text me to confirm she’s on it so I can be at the bus stop to meet her,’ Sarah says. ‘She also plays out in the park opposite our house with her friends and it’s comforting to know where she is and to be able to call her.’
Likewise, another mother, Katie, an Apple AirTag in her 9-year-old’s school bag when she moved to a specialist primary school and started going alone by taxi. ‘To start with, putting her into a taxi with a stranger felt horrible. My mind was running wild with what might happen so the AirTag gave us peace of mind.’
Not everyone thinks tracking kids is a good idea, however. When I told my husband about downloading Life360, he was horrified, saying he thought it sent the wrong kind of message to our daughter. ‘Using this app says we don’t trust her,’ he said. ‘It says we will track her night and day and she won’t be able to do anything without us knowing. There’s no privacy for her. We need an open and honest dialogue with her, not a tracking app.’
His reaction made me think. Was this about trust or safety? Do children need privacy? Or does safety trump privacy until they reach a certain age?
‘We might feel that tracking children provides an extra layer of security - we know where they are, we can assume that they are safe. But what does this cost?’ says Dr Emma Svanberg, Clinical Psychologist and author of Parenting For Humans (Vermilion). ‘Part of childhood - from the time our babies learn to crawl away from us - is the search for independence. How would this be influenced by the knowledge that our parents can track our every move?’
Emma’s concerns don’t end there. ‘I also wonder if this could create a false sense of security for parents, in that they may be less inclined to teach their children the skills they need if they do get lost or need help. Whether or not you choose to track your children, it is helpful to also teach them your telephone number and support them in what to do if they run into problems on their way home from school. We have to consider the life skills we might be less inclined to pass on with the safety net of a tracking system.’ As for my question on safety vs privacy? Emma is clear that she thinks privacy for children is important. ‘My belief is that children do have a right to privacy, and to let us know that they are separate people from us and may make different choices to ours.’
Striking that balance between safety and privacy with kids is a challenge and an ever-shifting thing that needs to be discussed and re-evaluated on a regular basis. So for us, a tracking app is something we’ll use with our 11-year-old while we all gain confidence with her travelling alone to secondary school, and perhaps we’ll ease off once we’re all more used to it. ‘We want our children to become independent, competent adults who can solve their own dilemmas,’ says Emma. ‘And that starts with these small steps of separation.’
3 GPS tracking devices to check out
A 4G mobile phone and GPS tracker in one, the Adventurer can be turned into a regular wristwatch when kids are in school.
Life 360, Free (Premium is £3.99 per month)
This app offers location sharing, tracks car speed and alerts you when your kids leave or arrive at chosen places.
This smartwatch allows the wearer to make calls but only from a list of contacts you set on the app, as well as showing you where they’ve been and where they are now.