MINNEAPOLIS, Minn — For the parents out there — do you track your kids?
Whether it's through an app, GPS device, or something simple like an Apple AirTag, a growing number of parents are monitoring their kids through their phones, and it has sparked a debate.
When I set out to put this story together, I was against keeping tabs on the kiddos. But then, I talked to a lot of parents and I may have changed my tune on this... and you might too.
"I've always thought, 'You track all sorts of stuff like luggage and pets and whatnot… why not track your young kids just in case something happens?'"
Steve Anderson of St. Michael is a dad with two young daughters. He started tracking his kindergartener after the school bus was 40 minutes late when dropping her off.
"I went out and got an Apple AirTag thing, dropped it in the backpack and that just gave us the reassurance that if something like that did happen again we could have a very good likelihood of finding her," said Anderson.
A similar situation for Bryana Klofstad of Burnsville and her 12-year-old son Liam.
"I started tracking him in 4th grade," said Bryana. "He was marked absent from school when he was not absent and he walks to school, so panic set in when I wasn't sure where he was."
It was a misunderstanding with the school, but nonetheless, like many parents, Bryana needed that piece of mind. Now Liam has an Apple Watch so Bryana can track his whereabouts.
"I think most people understand that it's sometimes a necessity to know where kids are and you don't always have the ability to be there when you have working parents," she said.
For Chelsey Koopman of Alexandria, she uses Life 360, a free tracking app to keep tabs on her blended family with 5 kids under 16 especially now that some are driving.
"Alexandria is a decent town but we are right on 94 between Twin Cities and Fargo," said Koopman. "Drugs, sex trafficking… it happens here. That's in our mind another security blanket too so we have some way to watch them in case."
Trisha Appledorn of Willmar uses the same app to track her 10th-grader Autumn.
"It shows you the speed, it shows exactly where it's at, it's really handy if you see that," Appledorn said. "You get alerts if they are going 65 miles an hour… slow down!"
The common theme among the parents I spoke with, they just want to know their kids are safe, which makes sense... but my question remained — could tracking your kids harm your relationship with them?
"It depends on how it's used," said parent coach Lisa Bunnage. "Is it used for safety or is a used as a form of discipline? Safety is good, discipline bad. It'll tank."
Bunnage says she is all for tracking your kids but it only works if the trust is already there.
"You have to work on their respect and with teenagers it's more give, give, give, with a little bit of take," Bunnage said. "Then it's give, give, give, a little take but you have to hand your trust on a silver platter. If you do catch them, you have to work on your parenting. You don't trust me enough to tell me where you are, so let's get to work on this."
To parents of teenagers, Lisa says the three most important skills are:
1.) Listening to understand and show empathy, not listening to grab information to lecture with.
2.) Don't sweat the small stuff and save your energy for the big stuff.
3.) Negotiate everything. Say I want to track you, what do you want from me in return?
It's about mutual respect!
Lisa Bunnage is a mother of two and a parenting coach, who loves sharing what she's learned from decades of working with children. For more parenting tips, visit her website BratBusters.com.
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