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Comment by ryandvm | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious about the demographics of someone that would ask such a question (in such a manner). I suspect you do not have children, or at least not teenage ones. I recall that I used to hold much stronger (and different) opinions about child-rearing _before_ I had children of my own.

I constantly struggle with balance between keeping my children safe and allowing them agency and the development of personal responsibility. Among other things, this ranges over such topics as location tracking, internet filtering, browser history, screen-time, etc.

I will absolutely admit that much of this sounds like the stuff that repressive governments engage in, but then again, my children are not full citizens. They are developing human beings that require a certain degree of protection.

Are you only opposed to location tracking? What level of "nanny-state" do think is acceptable in a household setting?

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As someone with extremely overbearing helicopter parents that now has a lot of issues that I have been working through over time with a therapist, please don't surveil and micromanage your children. It ultimately led to a lot of distrust of authority, anxiety, depression, social isolation, making worse choices in attempts to circumvent security controls and attempt to have control over my life, and other long lasting negative effects. I can guarantee that anything you implement (gps tracking, cameras, filters, logs) will be easily identified and bypassed, causing distrust and potentially even less safe decisions/scenarios.

I just fail to see what exactly tracking teenagers would be keeping them "safe" from. It seems like it wouldn't result in anything but resentment and sneaky behaviour.

Think of it this way, what did parents do before these kinds of things were available? Humans are still in existence, so teenagers were able to survive without this level af parental tracking. I think this level of parental overwatch says more about the parent’s insecurities than anything. You know what you were up to as a teenager. That’s probably what your teenager is doing. Did anything you do deserve big brother level tracking?

Now that you do have kids, do you use such an app? Do you plan to?

(I'm a father of a 3 year old; I'll likely use _something_ like this when she's old enough to go to the store around the corner and back by herself, but will likely stop once she's old enough to take the subway by herself.)

> I suspect you do not have children

The absolute worst genre of HN comments is "single childless guy criticizes others about their parenting". You've got some examples in the replies to this comment.

I will say you're probably doing fine.

Every generation throws off the ideals of the generation that came before.

Parents monitor their kids for a combination of:

1. Worry about the outside world. Justified - but monitoring location doesn't make it any less likely that they'll get hurt.

2. Worry about their child doing something they consider dumb. Again - justified. They will absolutely do something you consider dumb. But monitoring your child won't make then agree with you and won't stop them from doing something you don't like. The tighter the grip, the more they'll fight and the more they'll resent you for making them fight.

Parents like to think that this resentment will go away when the child is older. It doesn't. Many of you probably resent something your parents did when you were younger. But it does become less intense with distance - like everything else.

Anywho - Monitoring teenagers doesn't actually help anything. Monitoring younger children might make you feel more safe, though.

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