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The Grownup’s Guide to Tracking Your Adult Child
Here are 5 things to consider when deciding whether to keep tabs on your college kid’s location
2-minute read
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Key Takeaways
- Tracking works best as a mutually agreed safety tool, not a way to monitor or question an adult child’s choices.
- Checking a child’s location can increase a parent’s anxiety and may make the child less willing to share information.
- Families can set clear limits on location sharing and use simple check-in texts when continuous tracking is unavailable.
Remember the freedom of heading off to college for the first time — no one to tell you what to do or what time to be home? In a world without smartphones, our parents (or anyone else, for that matter) couldn’t reach us whenever they wanted.
In today’s world, it’s easier than ever for parents to keep tabs on their budding young adults when they leave home. About half of parents use smartphone apps, such as Life360, WhatsApp and Find My, to track their kids when they are teenagers, research shows. Nearly as many (42 percent) say they keep tabs on their 18- to 24-year-old child’s location.
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But should they?
For many parents, the question arises when their kids go off to college. Some say that’s the time to give young adults the privacy and space that the parents themselves enjoyed at that age. Others argue that safety and being able to respond in an emergency are more important — and can provide peace of mind for parents nervous about their kids being on their own for the first time.
Having your kid’s location can be useful in a range of stressful but rare circumstances, such as a car crash, says Tracy Foster, a 43-year-old mom from the Kansas City area and cofounder of Screen Sanity, a Kansas-based nonprofit that helps parents raise kids in the digital age. “The biggest pros are for unlikely situations, but if they were to happen, they would have an incredibly high cost,” Foster notes.
It can also be helpful if they’re traveling alone, in an unfamiliar place, at a big event or in other situations where it may be hard to communicate. But tracking can also be a source of unnecessary anxiety for some parents.
For those deciding whether to go the tracking route, here are some considerations experts say you should keep in mind.
1. Know your motivation. Do you want to track your kid for safety reasons or surveillance?
Cameron Caswell, 58, of Ashburn, Virginia, an adolescent psychologist and parent coach, says that surveilling your kid — like looking at their locations on a Friday or Saturday night and questioning it — can cause them to hide or cut you off. “Their entire sense is ‘I need to break free, and they’re not letting me,’ ” she says.
Caswell has her daughter’s location as a form of connection and fun. Her daughter can see her location too, and neither of them uses it for surveillance. “We are each other’s person to make sure we’re each safe. It’s on equal grounds,” she says. “It’s a transparency and trust thing, not an I need to track you thing.”
2. Weigh safety vs growth. College is a time for your child to gain independence and learn about themselves.
While safety is important, so is letting the child learn and adapt on their own, says Sarah Gallagher Trombley, 49, of Pelham, New York, founder of Digital Mom Media, an educational platform that helps parents navigate the online world safely.
She says it has become too convenient to see what your children are up to. “It’s a habit more than need,” she adds. Tracking apps may also have a negative impact on kids’ development and experimentation if they know someone is keeping an eye on them, she notes.
Additionally, if your kids know you’ll always be there to help or steer them, they might not learn to make their own decisions, Trombley says.
“If they don’t get to learn those lessons for themselves, that can become a problem as they get older,” she says.
3. Contemplate the impact on yourself. Some parents might assume tracking their kids will automatically bring peace of mind. That isn’t necessarily the case. It can actually create more anxiety, Trombley notes. If you check their location and something seems off, there’s not always a whole lot you can do, especially if your kid lives in another city, she says. If you reach out to them and question them, they may feel surveilled and less inclined to share with you in the future.
You can also get overly focused on checking where your child is, especially on weekends, which can distract you from your own plans and routines, Trombley warns.
4. Have a conversation. If you do opt for tracking — and your kid agrees to it — setting boundaries is a must. Doing so will help keep you from micromanaging and patrolling their every move, Foster says.
“The whole goal is to equip our kids with everything for them to be independent, self-reliant adults,” she says.
Discuss expectations with your child, including when you will check their location and why. Stick to the reasons you originally shared and avoid expanding its use beyond that without another conversation, Foster advises.
5. Establish check-in routines that don’t rely on tracking. For example, if part of the goal is knowing they arrived home safely, agree that they’ll send a quick text after certain events or when they get home.
“Everyone’s relationship between parent and child is different,” Trombley says. “It’s important to listen to your gut, listen to your child and have an honest dialogue about it."
The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.
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