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I am old, too. I was free range, and my kids were free range, but not quite as much as i was. Some stories have come out much much later. The grandkids were on a tighter leash, because their activities were more organized, so they tended to be in school or in the minivan.
In every case, we all have been in good family neighborhoods, and good schools, so the other kids were basically good. If I had a child who was bullied or in a place where the kids were bad, I might think differently.
If I had a child today, and was at all concerned about her safety, I might avail myself of technology, but they wouldn’t even have a phone until high school anyway.
I wouldn’t call it spying to be aware of where my teens are; that’s just parenting. I don’t read their texts (they’ve never given me a reason to) and I don’t do random spot-checks on their phones (again, no reason to). They are entitled to a certain level of privacy, but no, they do not have the freedom to just roam wherever they want, without me knowing where they are.
Ours are just out of teen years. We didn't spy on our kids as teens because they never gave us reason to. Basically, we established a position of trust, and they knew that as long as they didn't violate that trust, we didn't spy on their phones or texts.
When I was a kid we pretty much free ranged all over the fields, woods, and town growing up. Could pretty much go anywhere we wanted as long as we were home by supper. Though our kids were in a different environment we let them range as much as was possible.
Oldest is now graduated college, has a good job, and married. Youngest decided to let the Army pay for his college and graduates this year.
I'm a parent of a 17 & 20 y.o. They both got iphones in 6th grade so they could call for rides & have doting grandparents willing to upgrade them from a basic flip phone. We've always had a certain level of monitoring software on the family computer and have a certain level of monitoring software on the iphones. We very rarely use it (track my phone is mostly used if the phone gets misplaced while on silent mode). Computer usage monitoring mostly only gets looked up if one of the kids is struggling with time management. We never used any content filtering software on the computer, but the computer was only allowed to be used in the family room. The expectation is that their right to privacy starts happening when they pay for these services themselves. That said, we've never looked at texts or emails without their knowledge and only a handful of times have asked them to let us read their personal correspondence and there wasn't any objection. I'm not sure how we would have proceeded if there was, probably would have depended on what our concern was. Discord is the only social media platform they are on. The adult child, what he does on his computer is his business. He got his own laptop when he left for college, though seems to follow the family room rule when he's visiting. The younger one we do ask about who is in the groups she's in, but other than occasionally asking her about it, we never felt a need to investigate further.
We let the kids free range around the neighborhood and never made use of phone tracking when they were out & about. We live in a pretty tight knit community, so I'd get a lot of unsolicited reports about which trees my kids were spotted in. If they did anything crazier than climbing trees, I haven't found out about it yet.
Last edited by wildflower_FL; 01-03-2022 at 11:04 PM..
When I was raising my kids, there were no spying devices (like turning your kid's location on to see where they are).
Do you guys use the new technology to spy, and if so, how is it going? Curious how it affects you and your teen. Does it cut down on them going to fields and drinking? Do they stay home more or just go to places you want them to go to?
I can't imagine (as a teen myself) not having freedom to do what I pleased as a teen. I would have been mortified if not able to do what I wanted to do and go where I wanted to go.
My kids were also kind of free range in that I had no means to spy on them. I would have been a nervous wreck if their location said they were 100 miles away or somewhere on some mountain, etc. How do you handle the stress?
I'm also a grandmother, past "free range" wild child no one cared about. I surely would use some technology if I had a kid today, you almost have to with the amount of social media bullying. Location sharing may save their life.
Both of my kids are adults, my son we did have a net nanny way back when because he wouldn't get off the computer to go to sleep in high school. He was a good kid otherwise. He still stays up late at night playing xbox in his mid 30's.
My daughter was kicked out of a car at night, a few miles from home. Her battery was almost dead, cell signal stunk when we moved here 13 years ago. I could only hear a part of the street name, thankfully I did figure it out. We have 3 or 4 streets that used the name I did hear, so it was a lucky guess by me that I picked right the first time. She's almost 30, I still can't go to sleep at night until I know she's home safe lol I can't count the number of times she woke me up because a ride fell through.
She most certainly watched what my 8 1/2 year old grandson does on the xbox chat, then will call me if he is breaking rules.
If you've ever had a teen who called you at dawn to tell you that he's out of gas and money 200 miles away, you might consider tracking him. Fortunately, he's all grown up and drives a flatbed, and . . . wait for it! has us track him so that we know when to pick him up from his rig!
If you're a parent of a kid like this, it helps to hear stories of how they eventually grow up and become responsible adults, as long as they don't kill you or them first! Hang in there!
If you've ever had a teen who called you at dawn to tell you that he's out of gas and money 200 miles away, you might consider tracking him. Fortunately, he's all grown up and drives a flatbed, and . . . wait for it! has us track him so that we know when to pick him up from his rig!
If you're a parent of a kid like this, it helps to hear stories of how they eventually grow up and become responsible adults, as long as they don't kill you or them first! Hang in there!
Lol, my kids told me that a bunch of them decided to drive into Canada from Ohio to see Niagara Falls. None of them thought about the fact that nobody except the 16 year old driver had any ID. It was pre 9/11, so the world was more innocent then. Fortunately, they were allowed to come back over the border.
My kids are 19 and 21. No, I have never spied on them. If I had been worried about them so badly that I felt the need to keep track of them, I would have taken their cellphone and car away and limited their internet access until whatever was wrong got resolved.
I think that teens deserve privacy and basic respect. I wouldn't appreciate someone tracking me, reading my texts or monitoring my social media and I would have HATED and resented my parents for doing something like that to me when I was a kid.
My kids are 19 and 21. No, I have never spied on them. If I had been worried about them so badly that I felt the need to keep track of them, I would have taken their cellphone and car away and limited their internet access until whatever was wrong got resolved.
I think that teens deserve privacy and basic respect. I wouldn't appreciate someone tracking me, reading my texts or monitoring my social media and I would have HATED and resented my parents for doing something like that to me when I was a kid.
I agree. It’s better to trust kids first, unless they give you a reason not to.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned, what message does it send to a teenager whose every move is being monitored? I think the message is that they are incompetent and incapable.
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