Location trackers can be highly controversial among parents, as while some detest the tech others swear by it. Of course, there's no right or wrong answer, and each family must find the solution that's right for them. But one mum who draws comfort from knowing she can check where her children are at any given time has made a case for such apps.
Responding to a Mumsnet forum asking users whether they track their children, one parent revealed she's strongly in favour of the tech - and her whole family gets involved.
She prefaced her post by saying she thinks her decision might be influenced by the true crime programmes that she watches, but that she still stands by her choice.
The mum, her partner, her brother, and her 13-year-old son use the same app, one she feels offers them 'another level of security' and 'peace of mind'. Meanwhile, her daughters don't yet use the tech but she plans to to track them when they start secondary school.
Explaining the benefits, she wrote: "My brother has epilepsy and there's a feature that let's (sic) him send an SOS to our group if he has an aura and then obviously we can see where he is."
In contrast, when it comes to her son, she tracks his location when she would like to know where he is. "My DS has asd and has started going out with his friend, or sometimes to play pokemon go. If he's late home, or if it's getting dark and he and his friend are walking back it feels good to be able to see where he is and know he's enroute," her post claimed.
However, she stressed that she will let her son make his own decisions in time. "When he's older I won't be as precious about it and if he doesn't want to be on the app that's fine, however if he wants to stay on it that's fine too," the mum wrote.
She added that she also uses the app with two of her friends. "I never really look on it but we all feel that bit safer for having it and if anything awful were to happen, we would be able to potentially help faster," she shared in a comment.
In response, the mum who started the debate replied: "Thank you so much. My children are still young so have no reason for a mobile phone just yet but I was genuinely interested in the reasons. I'm the same with true crime!!!"
Elsewhere, another parent revealed her 22-year-old daughter tracks her. "She has anxiety and in particular anxiety about something happening to me and it comforts her to be able to see where I am!" read the comment. "She doesn't do it everyday but whenever she needs to."
But others weren't keen on such tech for their own reasons. One short response explained: "No absolutely not. I couldn't bear to live like that." Another person thought: "It is about creating the illusion of control." And someone wrote: "I don't know what the psychological impacts would be of being surveilled as a teen. I would have hated it when I was growing up."
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