Another time I use it is when I wake up and my kids aren’t home, with no text saying where they are. I just check my phone. They tend to Uber a lot going to bars, so many times they’ll all just sleep at the first stop.
1 Like
We used Life360 when my son - then a senior in high school - took off for a three week road trip with four friends. This was fully approved and we knew the general travel plan, but they were driving cross country, camping and hiking and in some pretty remote locations - all in a van that was 25+ years old. It was more of a “if something happens and you are out of range, we’ll be able to see the path you most recently travelled in range to send help” kind of thing. Did I wince the day I opened it to see if they’d made it to their next destination and saw they were driving really fast? Yes I did. But they were in Montana, hopefully in a place where the speed limit and road conditions allowed for that, and I didn’t call or say anything. Once he got home and before he went to college he took Life360 off.
My younger son will get Life360 when he gets his drivers license this summer - but that’s mostly because if there’s an accident, I want to be notified. I’m not terribly trusting of his driving skills (which will hopefully improve before he takes the test this summer…)
In the meantime, we do have everyone’s phones on the same plan - I don’t check find my phone very often. Mostly to see if (1) younger son is still at a track meet or if the bus is heading towards home so I can gauge when to go to school to pick him up or (2) to see if older son is driving if I want to call him (he doesn’t like to talk while he drives).
1 Like
For me at least, I totally agree with Carolyn that it’s about parental anxiety. I have/had a lot of it. My sons balked when I suggested one of those connection to each other apps when they were in hs. I required check ins and a strict curfew time but also worried a lot about not knowing where they were in case they were in trouble. I mostly worry/worried about accidents as they rarely got into other types of trouble. I still worry about them being hurt and me not knowing. It was harder when they went to college, particularly with the first. But it gradually got easier as I realized it was better for me not to know everything they were doing so that my worry could take a rest. Now as young adults sometimes they tell me when they’re going somewhere ahead of time but usually I find out in our weekly phone calls after they returned. If they’re traveling internationally or to remote locations I suggest they let someone know their itineraries. It can be a roommate or friend. They never tell me they arrived home safely even after visiting me. They just don’t think about it. I did ask the two of them who recently moved to other states for grad school, so have friends who don’t know us or even how to contact us, to list me as the emergency contact connected to their drivers license. The other has a live in girlfriend whose parents also know us so I didn’t need him to.
All three do have apps where they can see where their friends are. But it’s more a curiosity thing than keeping tabs on them.
My husband and I don’t track each other either. I could be hours delayed and he’d just assume I had stopped somewhere to do something. I’m not sure how long I’d have to be missing to trigger his concern. He lacks the worry gene. I sometimes look at the online credit card bill if he’s been gone a while longer - like it’s been two hours and he was just going to the recycling center - to see where he’s decided to stop. But, we both rarely travel alone beyond our local area.
I often checked my younger daughters grades in college-----because she asked me to. She gave me all of her login information because on days when she had long clinicals in the hospital, she couldn’t get to her computer to check but could see my text come in on her Apple Watch, assuring her that she had passed a test. She’s a nervous test taker (but always did well).
My other daughter also gave me all her log in information because she was so busy with her double engineering major that she didn’t want to take the time to check regularly for when the bill for the next semester came out. It was never dependable and we had learned the hard way that a mismatch between when the bill came out and when the funds were taken out of her 529 in terms of the second semester just created annoying problems on our tax for. I had a fiend who thought it was terrible that our kids gave us access to their log in but my kids thought she was ridiculous.
Interesting thread and column from Carolyn. I do think it HAS to be mutual. We are an iPhone family and use Find My but it doesn’t always work.
Our oldest will turn it on for solo trips but otherwise keeps it turned off.
It is flaky with my MIL — we can see her devices but not “her”.
Recently started flaking out on my younger daughter and I thought she turned it off but then find my devices showed her phone at a friends’ but it’s stuck there now so maybe she turned it on and back off.
I think it sometimes alleviates my anxiety to know that people are where they are supposed to be but then sometimes it makes it worse especially with the kids if they are somewhere unexpected.
I do like folks to have it on when traveling.
It also comes in very handy when someone misplaces an item. I could not find my phone the other day and asked my kids to make it make a sound and finally found it in the car slipped down beside the seat.
H and I use it to see where each other is when we are traveling or just running errands but I’m ok with it if the kids want to turn it off. They just better not lose their phones!
My oldest son couldn’t find his phone and he had recently returned home during COVID (no need to pay rent for virtual work). I totally forgot I even had him on the app. We have a large front porch with seating, it was under a cushion. Those cushions get washed once in the spring. I don’t think we’d have found it.
You don’t necessarily need your kids for that though. You can go to icloud.com on your computer/ipad, sign in with your appleid and do find my iphone from there and make it play a sound etc.
4 Likes
My college kid uses the Find My Friends app also, but just for her friends. I don’t have it. I do agree that it’s a handy tool for them to see who’s around. They obviously choose to be tracked on FMF and I assume can turn it off if they want to be incognito.
For about six months, her Apple Watch was listed on the “Find My Phone” feature of my iPhone because we shared an Apple account. I still never checked it.
I periodically spot checked my kids’ grades in high school just to verify that they were on track and weren’t struggling in a particular subject. I did not have access to their college grades. They both knew that attending college is a privilege and they were expected to attend class and keep grades in check. If they failed out - it was on them, and their next trip to college would be on their dime. They didn’t take that lightly. Younger D tells me her grades without any prompting, and I get the Dean’s List notices so I think she’s ok. I never knew any of my older D’s grades but she graduated from a highly regarded program and is 7 years into her career, so she did ok too.
The trick for that, is you have to remember your apple ID and password, neither of which any of us can ever seem to remember! And until recently, getting my old laptop to boot up was such a pain, since I never used it, it could take a couple of hours to boot up and update. And you have to also be near your computer…
I now have mine and H’s written now and a workable laptop, but half the time when I try to do anything online like that, it doesn’t work. Much easier to ask someone else to ping it!
1 Like
I used to link up through WAZE when my son drove home from college because I worried about long drives alone (wasn’t actually too far) but haven’t used it sense. If someone is driving alone, especially if there are long stretches without a population or bad weather, it’s nice to see where they are on their route…perhaps that is a good use of the tracker.
The main reason I own an Apple Watch is that it will ping my phone with the touch of a button!
3 Likes
My son disappeared from our life for about 3 years when he was 18 and we only had his cell phone to know he was still alive, at least we hoped he was the one using it. I don’t recall being able to track him but could see his phone usage - I don’t think we even had iphones in 2005. I posted a thread about him in 2016 and he’s one of those kids not part of discussion on CC but he came around and is now a software engineer at Google, doing quite well and making me a believer in sometimes your job is just to keep them alive. Tracking that phone gave me hope.
19 Likes
My daughter and I both have find my friend on each other. She’s actually helped me find my phone twice - once when I wasn’t sure if I’d left it in a friend’s car or dropped it on a major city street (fortunately it was the former). I don’t have a Mac computer nor do I pay for iCloud storage so the other phone is it. She also shares her location with groups of friends so I think it seems normal to her. When she first went to college and I’d be anxious she wasn’t getting to class in the morning I could just check and not give into the temptation to text and ask. I stopped after the few weeks since she seemed to be managing. I also learned it’s a really bad idea to look where your kid is after about 10:00 pm so I no longer do that either. But I like the comfort of knowing I can always see where she is - as others said if I want to call so I can make sure she’s in her room or if she’s traveling. It also ensures she tells me when she’s doing a road trip in advance. Not asking my permission, but she’ll actually say “in case you look at find my friend I wanted you to know”. She can always ask to take it off but never has except once when I overstepped (can’t even remember the circumstances - it may have been when I though she should be in class and wasn’t) when she told me she’d turn it off if I ever did that again (I haven’t). Actually now that I think of it I think she said she’d never share her schedule with me again - even then she didn’t threaten to turn off FMF. But lesson learned regardless. I did call once when she & the boyfriend had driven a distance and I checked to make sure they were in their way back the next AM and she was in the middle of freaking nowhere - no roads around and not in the right direction to go back at all. She thought it was funny I called (he had taken her to see his high school which was definitely off-route). Anyway I don’t think I actually “track” my kid - it’s more a tool to use at selected times. And like I said she can track me (and her friends as well) so I think she sees it as more mutual not her parents checking up on her. (I did check grades in high school, mainly to follow up on missing assignments which was often the teacher not her; I don’t have nor want access in college).
1 Like
Oh and just to add - my mom doesn’t have an iPhone due to cost but I did put an AirTag in her car (with her knowledge) after she got terribly horribly lost for hours one day. She no longer goes more than a few miles from home but it makes me feel better that I can hopefully find her if she ever gets lost again.
4 Likes
That sounds like a good use of an AirTag 
I was trying from my Apple Watch but the signal is not great outside our house and it wouldn’t work until I went back down to the house and then by the time I got back to the car it wasn’t working any more. I was afraid if I did it from my laptop it would also stop playing the sound by the time I got to the car. Might’ve worked from the laptop, but easy enough to have the kids do it since my location is shared with them.
I read in the news the other day that a man hit a teen on a bicycle, and the kid actually broke through the windshield. The man RAN, leaving him to die in the street. Fortunately, he did not die, though was seriously injured. Authorities were able to find the hit and run perpetrator because one of the kid’s airpods landed inside the car when he went through the windshield. They were able to track the airpod, and it took them straight to the runner!
5 Likes
We always had location sharing on our iPhones while my daughter was a teenager. That worked for us and it did a decent job of keeping our daughter out of trouble. It taught her openness and honesty. Now that she’s 18, I don’t “dad stalk” her anymore. She works and starts college in the fall. I think we did good 
2 Likes
All our family phones have find my phone turned on, this is a safety measure in case the phones are stolen. None of us do the share location thing with each other. We are all considerate of each other and message when we arrive home or if we will be late when we are out somewhere. I usually call my husband when he goes wondering in a store or mall (sometimes he even answers!)
In my extended family, those of us with iPhones share our location with Find my Friends. My kids are included in this group. We are all hundreds of miles apart and don’t have family/friends near by. I think of the sharing as a safety feature that I hope never to have to use but, if one of us disappears, we’ll at least have some idea of where to start looking.