By Wendy Tuohy
As psychologist Sahra O’Doherty sits in her office with her teenage clients, the chances are their parents can see exactly where they are.
Most teens – and even some young adults – accept that being tracked by their parents is now so common that it is “normalised”, O’Doherty says, but she and others believe it’s “bad for the mental health of both sides”.
Sahra O’Doherty says parental tracking apps can affect parent-child relationships.Credit: Edwina Pickles
Use of the most popular tracking app, Life360, grew by 36 per cent in Australia last year, to reach 1.9 million monthly users, and it is just one of more than a dozen monitoring products popular among safety-conscious parents.
Some are also adding GPS tracking tiles or tags to children and young people’s belongings as part of the family security routine, allowing them to virtually follow them along.
The advent of what many view as harmless digital oversight is concerning safety and mental health experts who say being tracked is now such a common feature of childhood that it could make monitoring seem routine in later, adult relationships.
This is especially worrying in light of the widespread use of tracking devices by perpetrators of coercive control and domestic violence.
Apple’s AirTag is used to show the location of people or possessions.
“I completely understand that parents are going to be worried about their children, and wanting to protect their kids,” says O’Doherty, president of the Australian Association of Psychologists.
“But [tracking them] is harmful to both the parent and to the children, or the adolescents and young adults.”
As well as making young people feel distrusted, “and creating a bit of a hiding culture” (as seen in Reddit threads of young people sharing tracker-dodging hacks), O’Doherty and other mental health practitioners say it can make young people withdraw and parents obsessive.
They say the relationship and developmental risks can outweigh the perceived safety benefits, even though many Gen Zs welcome location sharing as a safety net among friends who might be, say, online dating.
“With parents, it’s often driven by a sense of stress, or fear or anxiety … and repetitive checking of these apps really fuels that anxiety,” says O’Doherty.
“The obsessive behaviour some parents get into is going to be harmful to them.”
The idea parents are always on hand to fix things robs young people of risk-taking and problem-solving experience, necessary to build healthy independence.
The tools themselves, such as Apple’s Find My feature, and Life360 – whose share price surged when it was NASDAQ-listed in June – are neutral, says Jocelyn Brewer, a psychologist with a focus on “cyber psychology”, but how they are used must be careful and negotiated.
“Many of the tools … have their place when we are clear on how/when/why we use them and don’t overly rely on them,” she says. “They don’t teach assertiveness in what I call ‘wobbly situations’ – things that go a bit off script and are unusual but not seriously threatening.
“They might tell a parent where a kid is, but not what is happening to them – unless you are using a listening device as well (and I have parents who have kids using smartwatches and are able to listen to what’s going on).”
Brewer has young clients who have been “almost stalked by their parents even after high school”. One university student stopped coming for sessions even after being offered bulk-billing because her mother would know she was there. She even had concerns her mother would know if she had a telehealth session.
But some of Brewer’s teen clients use tracking apps to monitor parents’ movements, for example to know if they are running late from work to collect them, “and the teen would just use [the parent’s] location as communication”.
“Efficient or disconnected? I’m not sure. Some people also use them to track elderly parents/grandparents or other family members, too. This can be handy to shortcut texting.” With personal tracking, context is everything, she says.
Mother, online safety advocate and author Ginger Gorman has experienced intimidation after writing about hard-core trolls and family violence, but she is among those who object stridently to location tracking children.
“The statistics are that currently 100 per cent of domestic abuse cases in Australia involve some form of tech abuse, and mostly that is spyware and tracking apps,” says Gorman, who does not track her two young children.
Ginger Gorman has experienced intimidation because of her work writing about hard-core trolling and family violence, but even so she would not use tracking apps on her children.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
“If you insist on your child having a tracking app on their phone, to my mind, you are effectively normalising them to be tracked 24/7, and that sets them to believe that is normal. It’s not.”
Gorman hears parents say tracking apps helped their children get out of unsafe situations but even this could not convince her because the downsides of monitoring are too high.
“We know from research that kids of helicopter parents grow up far more anxious,” Gorman says. “What message are you sending your kids? That the world is an unsafe place, and you can’t rely on yourself and solve problems alone.
“That’s not the message I believe children should be getting from us.”
‘I’ve got parents who put AirTags in the child’s suitcase when they go on camps: that is stupid, and ridiculous.’
Susan McLean, policewoman-turned cybersafety consultant
Policewoman-turned cybersafety consultant Susan McLean says there is nothing inherently wrong with using parental tracking apps, but she worries parents may depend on them rather than on strong, real-world communication.
“I believe parents should know where their kids are, and that should come from kids telling parents where they’re going, rather than relying on a tracking app,” says McLean.
“I’ve got parents who put AirTags in the child’s suitcase when they go on camps: that is stupid, and ridiculous. Camps are to build independence; there’s a time and a place. They can be useful, but it needs to be a balanced conversation.”
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