Life360 undermines mutual trust. Courtesy | Wikimedia Commons
Tracking apps such as Life360 allow parents to keep tabs on their children’s location at any time. Life360 offers updates when someone leaves the house, gets home from school, or gets into a car. Other apps such as Find My Friends allow users to share and track the location of their contacts. While this seems like a valuable tool for keeping kids safe, location tracking can have a negative impact on family relationships. When parents track the location of their kids through their phones, they undermine any mutual trust with their child.
A 2018 Pew Research poll found that 16% of parents track their children’s location on their phones. According to the Life360 website, the app currently has more than 200 million downloads worldwide and more than 42 million members.
The common practice of location tracking shows a fundamental weakness in parent-child relationships that won’t be fixed by any digital accountability system.
When parents make the decision to give their child a phone, they should be able to trust that the child is old enough to make responsible choices and communicate his location to his parents. Tracking the kid on his phone is ineffective for safety and sends the message that the parents do not trust him. This can trigger animosity from the child, who will likely resent what he sees as constant spying.
The only reason that parents should feel the need to track their kids is if they have proven that they can’t be trusted. Even so, kids can easily turn off their location or leave their phones at a friend’s house if they don’t want their parents to have their location. Even if they keep sharing their location, there is no guarantee that the fear of their parents’ watchful eye will keep them from engaging in dangerous behavior. If the kid is going to engage in dangerous or criminal behavior, Life360 probably won’t stop him.
If the parents don’t have a reason to mistrust their child, then mutual communication between parent and child is healthier and more effective for safety purposes than digital tracking.
Tracking is one-sided and requires no cooperation on the part of the child. A more effective approach would be for the child to text or call his parents occasionally, letting them know where he is and who he’s with. This active communication would require cooperation on the part of the child, who has to make a conscious decision to touch base with his parents. It would also teach the child voluntary accountability.
Parents should be involved in their kid’s life to the point that they know what he’s doing on any given day but don’t feel the need to keep tabs on him. Ultimately, parents cannot save their kids from their choices. At some point, kids have to take responsibility for their own actions and learn from their own mistakes. It’s part of growing up and becoming a responsible adult.
