97: Should I Track My Teen's Location?

Ask Lisa: The Psychology of Raising Tweens & Teens

Dr. Lisa Damour/Reena Ninan

Mental Health, Kids & Family, Health & Fitness, Parenting

4.7 • 824 Ratings

🗓️ 6 December 2022

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today's technology allows us to know a lot more about our kids than our parents ever knew about us. So...is it a good idea to track your teen's location? While parents might track their teens for supervision and safety reasons, teens often long for more independence and privacy than tracking allows. Dr. Lisa explains why this tension is an expectable, healthy part of adolescent development and unpacks two key questions: What, exactly, does tracking accomplish? And does it really help to keep teens safe? Reena asks about the downsides of tracking a teen’s location and Dr. Lisa lays out the tricky scenarios she's encountered in her practice. ________________ Ask Lisa: The Psychology of Raising Tweens & Teens is the essential podcast for parents seeking expert guidance, tested strategies, and psychological insights on raising kids, especially tweens and teens. Join renowned clinical psychologist Dr. Lisa Damour and former journalist and mom of two Reena Ninan as they explore real-life parenting challenges. Looking to learn more about how to boost kids’ resilience, build their confidence, or support their emotional well-being? Dr. Lisa and Reena have got you covered! Together they address listener questions about stress, anxiety, social media concerns, school pressures, and challenges in peer relationships. Each episode provides practical advice and science-backed solutions to help parents raise resilient, confident, and emotionally healthy kids. Tune in every week for the latest topics in parenting, child psychology, and family wellness. Get answers to your most pressing parenting questions. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn @AskLisaPodcast, @LDamour, @ReenaNinan Additional resources: https://www.drlisadamour.com/ Ask Lisa is produced by: Www.GoodTroubleProductions.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Ask Lisa, a podcast to help people understand the psychology of parenting.
0:10.0	Psychologist Dr. Lisa DeMore, author of two New York Times best-selling parenting books, takes your questions.
0:17.0	And I'm co-host, Rina Ninan, a journalist and mom of two.
0:24.2	Some of what we talk about comes from raising children ourselves.
0:28.2	Most of the time, I'll be getting answers to your parenting questions.
0:33.1	So send your questions to Ask Lisa at Dr.LisaDemore.com.
0:41.3	Episode 97, should I track my teen's location? So since I haven't gotten my kids a cell phone, there's this whole world once you've given your kid a cell phone that I'm unaware of, but I didn't know that sometimes parents track their kids' location via cell phone.
0:55.6	They turn it on and can know exactly where they really are.
0:58.9	Is that a big thing?
1:00.1	They do.
1:01.1	It's a huge thing.
1:02.4	And it's a hugely controversial thing, actually, among parents.
1:06.0	Some parents feel very strongly that you should not track your teenagers, that it's important for them to
1:12.7	be independent in the world. And other parents think, like, what loving parent wouldn't track
1:18.0	your teenager and know where they are and maybe help keep them safe? It's a big topic.
1:22.6	That's interesting. So I'm in the, okay, track them, track them. But I'm curious to know by the end
1:26.4	of the podcast, if I still feel that way, I want to read you this letter that came into our inbox, Lisa,
1:30.6	it says, hello. I love your podcast, and I was wondering what your thoughts are about the location
1:34.8	tracking app, Life 360 and Teenagers turning it off. I have a rising senior who doesn't want to be
1:40.6	on our Life 360 family plan for our senior year, and I don't feel comfortable
1:44.6	doing it. I really like the safety feature of it, and I like to know I can check where he is.
1:49.9	What are your thoughts? First of up, what is this Life 360? I've never heard of it.
	...

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