Some parents struggle to stop tracking their kids' every move — even in college
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Parents' unprecedented ability to keep tabs on their kids might be threatening some of the normal, healthy parts of young adulthood.
Why it matters: Location-sharing tools can help give parents peace of mind and ease the logistical burdens of raising a family. But some parents want to keep that data flowing even after their children head off to college — a tight virtual leash at a stage that's traditionally been about independence.
By the numbers: 84% of U.S. parents use some form of tracking to monitor their kids, according to a survey from Malwarebytes, a cybersecurity company.
- That could be location-sharing, reading their emails or any number of other tracking tools.
- Smartphones, which most kids have by their teenage years, make location-sharing easy. Companies are coming out with smart watches designed for kids in elementary school.
- And there are a slew of more sophisticated tools. Life360, one of the most popular tracking apps, alerts parents with hyper-specific details, like when their child walks into a friend's house, whether they're speeding on the road, and a complete history of their movements over a weekend.
"Some of my friends have alerts on their phone indicating when their child has entered math class in college," Theresa Fabrizio, a Detroit-area mom, told Axios.
- "That to me feels very overboard ... You're giving them zero opportunity to make the mistakes, skip the class and feel the repercussions and figure it out for themselves."
Zoom in: One parent wrote in to an advice column in The Washington Post to say they feel anxious about their college-bound kid refusing to let their parents track their movements.
- The same parent said they have friends who track their 24-year-old married daughter.
The stakes: What starts as parents holding onto teens’ location for peace of mind can devolve into parents scolding them for staying out late on a Saturday or calling them every morning to wake them up for class.
- “You’re providing your child with training wheels,” says Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center, an independent research organization.. “They’re going to have to come off.”
Plus, any app can be tricked, and many high schoolers admit to swapping phones or turning on airplane mode to dupe their parents.
- “If it’s not a two-way avenue of trust then kids just start to get more devious,” Fabrizio says.
The other side: There are many teens who say they don't mind being tracked by their parents — and that the technology quells their anxiety too, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The bottom line: “Calculated danger, and yes, failure is a part of growing up,” Tas Rahman, a junior at Brown University writes in a Brown Daily Herald op-ed about refusing his parents’ requests to track him.
- “For generations, kids have grown up, gone to college, and gone on to be successful adults — all without being monitored. I too will survive.”
