Low-key kid tracking

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

I assume the plan here is to have your kid hate you so you spend the rest of your life being reminded that not only did you never trust them but you tagged them like an effing animal so you could secretly monitor their movements?

I know you’re a crotchety bastard who thinks everything in life has to be related back to extremes of your foster kids, so I’m not going to take your melodramatic dig there too seriously, but if you thought about it a bit, you’d realize I’m actually trying to build more freedom and responsibility into their life, not less. They are 6 and 9, not angsty teenagers.

I grew up roaming freely (I walked to school at 6, biked everywhere till the sun went down, taught myself how to swim in a lake at 7 etc). I’d love to give them that same experience, but I also understand I have two small girls, live in the inner-city with traffic and hobos, and have a wife who is generally over-protective. So being a dad who lives in reality, I’m trying to find a balance where they can go to the playground, bike around the neighbourhood, and generally roam around by themselves, without us having to directly nanny of over them. If it means them having to wear a watch that lets them communicate if they need to, and it gives my wife peace of mind, so be it. If they show responsibility, they will be given more.

Also, I have a very nice relationship with my kids. Just because your life turned out miserable, don’t project it onto others.

[PepsiFree]

Having some sort of tracker is definitely a good thing. I say this as someone who didn’t care if my parents knew where I was but found remembering to “check in” whenever I went somewhere else incredibly annoying.

I guess it just depends on the relationship between the kid and parent, but if it’s a healthy relationship then a simple (no internet browser/App Store access) phone with a tracker is just completely logical and probably a great idea for both parties.

[Wormius]

It's also just convenient for everybody. My wife and I share each other's locations. It means nobody is waiting outside on a cold or rainy day or idling in the parking lot unnecessarily. Just look at the phone and can see, "oh they're about 5 minutes away, I can go now".

[cam_wmh]

Originally Posted by Table 5

I know you’re a crotchety bastard who thinks everything in life has to be related back to extremes of your foster kids, so I’m not going to take your melodramatic dig there too seriously, but if you thought about it a bit, you’d realize I’m actually trying to build more freedom and responsibility into their life, not less. They are 6 and 9, not angsty teenagers.

I grew up roaming freely (I walked to school at 6, biked everywhere till the sun went down, taught myself how to swim in a lake at 7 etc). I’d love to give them that same experience, but I also understand I have two small girls, live in the inner-city with traffic and hobos, and have a wife who is generally over-protective. So being a dad who lives in reality, I’m trying to find a balance where they can go to the playground, bike around the neighbourhood, and generally roam around by themselves, without us having to directly nanny of over them. If it means them having to wear a watch that lets them communicate if they need to, and it gives my wife peace of mind, so be it. If they show responsibility, they will be given more.

Also, I have a very nice relationship with my kids. Just because your life turned out miserable, don’t project it onto others.

I don’t have kids, so don’t take my anecdote too seriously. Not going to share too much, but I’ve seen this work within the iOS environment with 3 different kids, same family. From their teens, to today where all 3 of them are exceptional adults.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Table 5

I know you’re a crotchety bastard who thinks everything in life has to be related back to extremes of your foster kids, so I’m not going to take your melodramatic dig there too seriously, but if you thought about it a bit, you’d realize I’m actually trying to build more freedom and responsibility into their life, not less. They are 6 and 9, not angsty teenagers.

I grew up roaming freely (I walked to school at 6, biked everywhere till the sun went down, taught myself how to swim in a lake at 7 etc). I’d love to give them that same experience, but I also understand I have two small girls, live in the inner-city with traffic and hobos, and have a wife who is generally over-protective. So being a dad who lives in reality, I’m trying to find a balance where they can go to the playground, bike around the neighbourhood, and generally roam around by themselves, without us having to directly nanny of over them. If it means them having to wear a watch that lets them communicate if they need to, and it gives my wife peace of mind, so be it. If they show responsibility, they will be given more.

Also, I have a very nice relationship with my kids. Just because your life turned out miserable, don’t project it onto others.

My life is fine and I'm not being a crotchety old bastard, I am trying to point out that your relationship with your kids will likely hit a rough patch in their early teens, 12 for girls 14 for boys is typical, now if you are so lucky that that doesnt happen great, but for almost every parent in the world it does, teenagers are supposed to rebel its part of their maturing.

At that point monitering you kids may (increasingly will these days with new tech) become a point of contention, some parents are smart enough to stay low key, resist the temptation to increase their checks as they get more concerned about their kids hoodlum friends, experiments with weed that every single kid goes through etc, but some parents dont, they increase the monitoring and supervision and it becomes a huge point of contention.

This leads to my second point, knowing where your kid is does little to keep them safe, we like to think if we know where they are they are safe but the truth is they're not, if your kid is abducted the phone is dumped, if they are in hospital they are still injured, if they are getting high they have turned the phone off and you are even more mad and scared, as a parent you are better off, the kid is safer, if they just call you back when you ring them, if they are getting into crap they will likely text you back rather than answer but it is the communication not the location you need to keep them safe and if the phone becomes a point of contention then you wont get the communication.

I'm a professional parent, I get paid to deal with these issues, I was monitering alt. news groups for kiddie porn and pedos trying to contact my kids in mid nineties, keeping an eye on nexopia in the 2000's and trying to get a handle on cell apps since the invention of the i phone, if you never have to deal with any of this great, good for you, but most parents will have to deal with these issues, an angry teen, a natural desire to clmap down harder out of fear, the subsequent escalation of the conflict, I am just trying to point out this is an vastly increasing area of parent teen conflict, literally the monitering of kids and their subsequent anger at it is becoming the number one issue that middle class parents are dealing with

[CliffFletcher]

Most parents today don’t let their 6 and 9 year olds play in the neighbourhood unsupervised full-stop. When our kids played without us at the park behind our house when they were 7, fretting moms asked them where their parents were.

So Table 5 wants to give his kids more freedom and autonomy than most kids have. That’s admirable. And wanting some way to track them seems a reasonable compromise with a more typically anxious spouse. As he says, he’s not asking for ways to monitor 14 and 15 year olds who he distrusts.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Most parents today don’t let their 6 and 9 year olds play in the neighbourhood unsupervised full-stop. When our kids played without us at the park behind our house when they were 7, fretting moms asked them where their parents were.

Oh yeah, big time. Get a lot of calls for 'unattended' kids. These days, unless a kid looks 'big/old' for 10yo, helicopter Karens are gonna be calling the cops on them if they can't see a parent around.

[afc wimbledon]

obviously I am addressing older kids in my comments, although again I would ask the obvious question as you go about your day checking to see where your kid is randomly once every hour or two with no real context, how exactly is this keeping the kid safe?

[EldrickOnIce]

We bought an Invoxia Cellular GPS Tracker. It's pretty great piece of relatively small tech. You can keep track of anything with it (limited to use in continental US where at&t has cell service).
Battery lasts two weeks or more, depending on usage (apparently up to 4 months). Initial cost is $129 which includes 1 year subscription ($30 yearly after first year). What you can track is limited only by your imagination - biggest con is no ip waterproof rating. Though not why we bought it, would definitely keep tabs on little ones

[KTrain]

Most "solutions" are useless without a SIM card and some kind of monthly cell plan. AirTags have a laughable range. They're good for finding lost items within a 100m of you but that's about it.

We gave our kids old cell phones (no SIM) for a while because they had wifi access at the park they went to. Once our eldest was taking the city bus to school we got him a SIM card on our shared plan.

When they about your kids age and wanted to venture out further on their own, we asked them to stay together and take one of our phones with them. It wasn't worth getting a monthly cell plan for them when they only went out exploring a couple times a week.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

AirTags are specifically designed to prevent tracking people. First, the person's iPhone will begin alerting that a foreign AirTag is following you, followed by an annoying audible alert (which you can technically disable).

Giving them an iPhone with parental controls turned on and 'Find My' is probably the best solution here.

My suggestion was a dumb phone or Blackberry though. Unless the child had an Apple phone, how would what you suggested apply? Or does the air tag itself beep?

I know some parents are upset about the air tag thing, but "find my friends" is the same thing. It's just embedded into the phone. As a parent emulating the way my parents raised me (but with new technologies), there's a lot of times where they would call just to ask where I was at and what time to expect me home (to wait or not wait). The air tag or find my just avoids that.

And/or I could contact my kid and only look up their location to make sure things are seemingly normal and safe when they don't reply. I wouldn't hound them and track them like a freaky helicopter parent like some marauders map in Harry Potter. I would just let them know that I'd use it only when I cannot get ahold of them and I start to worry. TBH, both they and I probably would forget the trackers exist until absolutely necessary. However, OP has younger kids, so I could totally see your point with OP tracking their kids like this.


Sim Card wise, since Shaw is offering inexpensive sims with some of their internet packages, that could possibly be something to look into instead of something like pay as you go?

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

My suggestion was a dumb phone or Blackberry though. Unless the child had an Apple phone, how would what you suggested apply? Or does the air tag itself beep?

Let me clarify the AirTag / iPhone behavior:

An AirTag can ping off of any iPhone. So the AirTag wants to report its location, there is an iPhone nearby, it says "Hey, broadcast my location" and the iPhone does so without any identification of the iPhone that reported it nor does it require that iPhone's owner to allow it. There's a guy on YouTube that tried to send an AirTag to North Korea and you can see the path it took and where it ended up getting stuck.

If an AirTag is separated from its owner and is following someone else and the tracked person is carrying an iPhone, their iPhone will notify them that a foreign AirTag is following them. Let's say the tracked person doesn't have an iPhone but spends all day with their friends who do, those iPhones might show that they're being tracked by that AirTag.

Once an AirTag is separated from its owner for three days and is not in a 'Do not alert' location, the AirTag itself will start beeping so that it can be found.

It's basically to prevent AirTags being used to stalk someone. Apple has said a few times that AirTags are meant to find possessions you misplaced around the house, and not people or stolen property. However, I do have an AirTag hidden in my car with the AirTag speaker disabled so if it were ever to get stolen flat-deck style, I'd be tracking it and know where it is long before the thieves would start getting notified.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

Let me clarify the AirTag / iPhone behavior:

An AirTag can ping off of any iPhone. So the AirTag wants to report its location, there is an iPhone nearby, it says "Hey, broadcast my location" and the iPhone does so without any identification of the iPhone that reported it nor does it require that iPhone's owner to allow it. There's a guy on YouTube that tried to send an AirTag to North Korea and you can see the path it took and where it ended up getting stuck.

If an AirTag is separated from its owner and is following someone else and the tracked person is carrying an iPhone, their iPhone will notify them that a foreign AirTag is following them. Let's say the tracked person doesn't have an iPhone but spends all day with their friends who do, those iPhones might show that they're being tracked by that AirTag.

Once an AirTag is separated from its owner for three days and is not in a 'Do not alert' location, the AirTag itself will start beeping so that it can be found.

It's basically to prevent AirTags being used to stalk someone. Apple has said a few times that AirTags are meant to find possessions you misplaced around the house, and not people or stolen property. However, I do have an AirTag hidden in my car with the AirTag speaker disabled so if it were ever to get stolen flat-deck style, I'd be tracking it and know where it is long before the thieves would start getting notified.

So... it functions kinda like a tile? That makes sense.

[ResAlien]

I guess the hope is table’s kids don’t morph overnight into at risk drug addled teens. Maybe some kind of Freaky Friday scenario happens but it seems unlikely.

At 6 and 9 they’re probably fine. The iPhone thing with built in screen time app will do what you want table. You can allow exactly as much or as little access to the phone and with the share location feature you will be able to see where they are for your peace of mind.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

I guess the hope is table’s kids don’t morph overnight into at risk drug addled teens.

If he gets ahead on this by setting them up with phones now, they can be the ones selling the drugs, not smoking the drugs. It's both increasing safety and encouraging entrepreneurship.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by jammies

If he gets ahead on this by setting them up with phones now, they can be the ones selling the drugs, not smoking the drugs. It's both increasing safety and encouraging entrepreneurship.

I'd assume Table has already started them on Breaking Bad for reference.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

I'd assume Table has already started them on Breaking Bad for reference.

Locked down phone with only Breaking Bad for the 6 yo. 9 yo gets Scarface and The Wire loaded too.

[fundmark19]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

Locked down phone with only Breaking Bad for the 6 yo. 9 yo gets Scarface and The Wire loaded too.

Might want to add How To Sell Drugs Online Fast as well. It is dubbed but will give the kids a nice look into using new crypto methods in case their clients want to dabble in digital currency

[Locke]

Originally Posted by fundmark19

Might want to add How To Sell Drugs Online Fast as well. It is dubbed but will give the kids a nice look into using new crypto methods in case their clients want to dabble in digital currency

"How To Sell Drugs...For Dummies."

[Galakanokis]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

Let me clarify the AirTag / iPhone behavior:

An AirTag can ping off of any iPhone. So the AirTag wants to report its location, there is an iPhone nearby, it says "Hey, broadcast my location" and the iPhone does so without any identification of the iPhone that reported it nor does it require that iPhone's owner to allow it. There's a guy on YouTube that tried to send an AirTag to North Korea and you can see the path it took and where it ended up getting stuck.

If an AirTag is separated from its owner and is following someone else and the tracked person is carrying an iPhone, their iPhone will notify them that a foreign AirTag is following them. Let's say the tracked person doesn't have an iPhone but spends all day with their friends who do, those iPhones might show that they're being tracked by that AirTag.

Once an AirTag is separated from its owner for three days and is not in a 'Do not alert' location, the AirTag itself will start beeping so that it can be found.

It's basically to prevent AirTags being used to stalk someone. Apple has said a few times that AirTags are meant to find possessions you misplaced around the house, and not people or stolen property. However, I do have an AirTag hidden in my car with the AirTag speaker disabled so if it were ever to get stolen flat-deck style, I'd be tracking it and know where it is long before the thieves would start getting notified.

Are you physically removing the speaker or is there another setting I am missing on this thing? I just want to track luggage and I assume it will beep after a certain period of time away from the phone.