<p>If my kids were at sleep away camp I would like this app. My family would not use it for a college student.</p>
<p>You’re in that ‘in between’ stage of being completely independent and somewhat dependent/connected to your parents. It sounds like other than this particular issue, you and your parents have a loving and functional relationship. Count your blessings - many young people lack parents who care. </p>
<p>Your wish is to be treated as an adult. For that to happen, you must comport yourself as a rational adult; not a daughter who stomps her foot and folds her arms across her body, in protest of this perceived ‘unfairness’. As the parent of a young adult woman, and as a former young adult woman, I believe I understand how you feel - at least I think so. My suggestions are intended to try to help you with this issue - there are no rights or wrongs. What I am hearing is, there is love and concern.</p>
<p>Try to see it from your parents’ point of view. Assuming they love you dearly, and would readily give up their lives for you, most likely the root of their request is concern for your safety and well being. Consider, truthfully, whether you have given them any reason to be concerned about your safety or your decision making. Even if you have not given them any reasons to doubt or distrust you, and assuming you have been a most responsible daughter, then, it is not too much to ask for you to try to understand your parents point of view. If it helps, talk to the parents of your friends or other women of similar age to you.</p>
<p>Then, have a serious talk with your parents, in person. Perhaps have a third party present if you need a mediator type person. Otherwise, just talk to your parents and find out what’s really on their minds.</p>
<p>Maybe you can come to a mutually agreed upon compromise. You could call or text your parents once a week to check in. Or email them a few times a week to let them know how you are. Or you give them the names of your good friends, and contact info, in case your parents need to get a hold of you.</p>
<p>I will say that I would not advise you to engage in any dishonesty toward your parents - someone suggested you get another phone and get the app on your old phone. I would be concerned that such a ruse would back fire on you someday, and either you will be harmed, or, you will give your parents a reason to not trust your word.</p>
<p>If sincere talks with your parents don’t work, and they dig in their heels, another option for you is to make a unilateral decision of how you will check in with your parents and the frequency. You can say to them, “I love you both very much. I recognize how much you have done and sacrificed to raise me. I feel I am a responsible adult and I have proven that many times in the past. I understand your concern, so I will check in with you _____ times a week by ___________ [text, email, phone, visit]. Anytime you text me, I will respond as soon as I can - if I am at work or traveling, it might not be until the end of the day, but I will respond no later than ______ .”</p>
<p>Someday you might be responsible for a child, and when that time comes, you will truly have an idea of what loving parents go through in raising a child.</p>
<p>This student is not “in between”. She is paying her own way in college and paying for her apartment. There’s an entire thread elsewhere on CC about when to stop paying for a kid’s phone-often it’s simply a cheaper option for the kids that parents are willing to offer, but that hardly means said kid is not an adult. This student IS an adult, handling adult responsibilities and her parents are being overprotective and very controlling. A lot of people mistake control for love, but it is not that same thing. </p>
<p>Anytime a person is living on their own, they actually have no obligation to contact their parents at specific times.That’s certainly not how most families operate, but it’s true. In the days of expensive long-distance phone calls, it would have been considered beyond ridiculous to insist on daily contact, never mind 24/7 knowledge of where your family members were. And a contract for how often to call, text, etc. is just above the pale.</p>
<p>I have a very close relationship with my parents and have never lied to them about where I was- never needed to. They rarely ask though. I wouldn’t have given them access to my location 24/7 in high school, let alone as an independent adult. </p>
<p>I <em>do</em> have an app on my phone called Circle of 6 that my parents are on. It sends your exact location if you’re in trouble, but it’s initiated by me not by my parents. </p>
<p>Unless there is some sort of threat of self-harm, mental health issues, or there is threat to your physical safety (such as an abusive ex), I can’t figure out why a parent would want to have 24/7 access to their adult child’s location other than for extreme control issues. </p>
<p>@sseamom My kids really don’t mind and one of them does live at home. When they are away from home and traveling. we like to know like to know that we could find them if they veered of in a ditch somewhere. Not knowing where someone is just because of some childish notion of independence is just plain silly. No tracker app could stop any kid from doing something he or she really wanted to do. I know it would never have stopped me. On the other hand, being able to find them when you needed to can mean the difference between life and death. But hey, if you don’t care to know where your kids are, that’s your business.</p>
<h1>23 Circle of 6 sounds pretty cool - I will have to check that out.</h1>
<p>Will it work if you are in an accident and unconscious though if you have to initiate it?</p>
<p>So Electro, help me out here-your adult children living on their own have this app and you know where they are when they are out of town and where they’re SUPPOSED to be so that when you check on them you know if you need to report them missing or hurt or something? Do they tell you, “Dad, I’m going to a conference tomorrow for the next three days and I will be back on Tuesday at 10.” And then they call you to tell you they’re back or you check the app to make sure? And you call emergency people if they are not at the appointed place? How does that work with kids living their own lives? You really need to know where they are at all times?</p>
<p>I have a 24 and 30 yo who have not lived under my thumb in quite some time. The 30 yo does some work that can be dangerous, he has a boat that he takes out on open water, and he drives in crazy traffic sometimes in terrible weather. It would never in a million years occur to me to ask him to put an app on his phone so that I know he is safe. He is an ADULT with his OWN life. His sister works quite late at night and often goes home by herself even later. But it is HER life and I would never presume to check and app to make sure she’s home and not out with friends or with her boyfriend or something. The odds of either of them being in a ditch is actually quite small, “if it bleeds it leads” news notwithstanding. </p>
<p>No, you have to initiate it. I work in sexual assault- we recommend it for college students. There is another one that slips my mind where if you don’t tick it off by x time, it automatically sends out a text/call/something. </p>
<p>In the incredibly unlikely but possible situation that your child is lying dead in a ditch, there are ways to find the phone anyway. It’s an emergency measure though, not an app. </p>
<p>ETA: The other one is called StaySafe</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Do your parents have a cell phone tracker on you too? Interesting. Here in NY we call a tow truck if our car slides into a ditch, but as long as your family is agreeable to your plan that’s all that matters. However, just because something else works for @sseamom and her family, it doesn’t mean they don’t care about their children. And just because some people’s parent, spouse, and/or boy/girlfriend orders them to install the app, it doesn’t mean they do care. It means they have control issues, in my opinion, but it doesn’t mean they care. </p>
<p>K: what you need to understand is that there is something going on in your parents lives or something that they did in their past that is causing this behavior. It’s not you.</p>
<p>So, you call them and tell one or the other: </p>
<p>“Thanks for caring so much about me, but now that I am a senior, I will be extremely busy, so the little time that I have to speak to you isn’t productive when you yell and threaten me, it’s not a good memory for me. It makes me wonder what happened in your life or youth, to mistrust me? Have I given you cause to mistrust me?” </p>
<p>Then, this will either shut them up, or, cause him to yell.<br>
So, “I’m sorry but I am running late to work.”
Hang up, take the phone with you to work, and leave it there. Oops! It fell accidentally in the toilet. Then go buy your own phone. </p>
<p>One of the reasons that I married at 20 was to avoid/escape this kind of intrusive parenting. Still, one day when I hadn’t talked to my mom for over a week, the police were at our door because “She couldn’t get a hold of me and was worried.” We were living across the country, and I hadn’t realized it had been that long since I talked to her, and in those days we didn’t have cell phones. My Dh was in grad school (which means I was at least 24) and I was teaching full-time, but my mom still thought I wasn’t completely capable of taking care of myself. So she somehow convinced the local police to check up on me. :(</p>
<p>You may win this App and phone conflict, but I’m betting you will continue to need to assert your independence for a long time- maybe as long as your folks are living. You might as well start now. But also, remember that you do love them, they love you, and you want to do it without causing lasting damage. Work out a solution that you can live with and then follow through. I realized that my parent was needy, and while her irrational concern was genuine, it stemmed from her own insecurity, not anything I had done. I think knowing that helped me feel better about helping her feel comfortable with my being away and making a little more effort to fill her in on the details of my life. In no way, however, do you owe your parents 24/7 access to your whereabouts or should you feel obligated, as an adult, to get their approval for every decision. But come to them with some compassion, as it really is their issue. Good luck. </p>
<p>Congratulations, kgarner2, because you sound very independent. Living on your own, paying your own way through school makes you an adult in my mind. Good work! Sounds like it’s time to get your own phone plan, even if it’s more expensive.<br>
Out of respect for your parents, it would be nice if it’s possible to have a reasonable discussion with them about what they are worried about. But in no way should you have this type of app; I cannot think of any reason for it. Perhaps there is a way to get at the root of why your parents would ask for this, and to alleviate those fears?
Otherwise, carry on with your life!</p>
<p>While this does seem intrusive, I’d just like to point out that when there was a thread earlier this summer about a student found dead in his dorm room, many people were saying, how come no one noticed that he didn’t show up for X and went to his aid? Perhaps the parents are excessively controlling, but you should at least consider that they are concerned about the OP living in an apartment by himself and thought that they could make sure he’s ok with such an app. </p>
<p>I know two people who are alive only because acquaintances from work took what could be considered an intrusive interest in their whereabouts. One was diabetic, the other was simply unlucky enough to get a life-threatening infection which left him unable to seek help.</p>
<p>I know a couple who uses an app like this. They live in a major city and I imagine it gives them peace of mind to be able to locate their spouse.</p>
<p>mathy, you’re not seriously equating an app that follows an apparently healthy young adult 24/7 with checking on someone with a medical condition that you haven’t heard of, right? Or, if someone hasn’t shown up to X in a while going to check on them? Those are both much, much different. </p>
<p>If both spouses in that relationship choose to use something like that, more power to them. Not what I would choose in my own relationship but I’m not in theirs. Presumably, they’ve both consented to this which is different than the OP’s problem. </p>
<p>You misunderstand. The person who was checked on was a healthy adult, maybe 35 when this happened. He did not have a pre-existing medical condition. He just happened to get a serious infection which quickly made him unable to care for himself. Everyone is assuming that the parents just want to spy on the OP and don’t trust the OP, but I just wanted to point out there could be more benign interpretations. Perhaps the parents feel that if the OP doesn’t show up for X, that no one will take any action. As happened to the kid found dead in the thread I mentioned.</p>
<p>If a person has the app and passes out or falls ill, all the app will do is show that the person is in the same place for a long time. So then we could get parents calling to make sure that in addition to not being in a ditch, they aren’t moving locations because they’re just staying put, not because they’re ill. The app just gives controlling parents a false sense of security but could also make them even MORE paranoid about possible trouble. An overly worried parent could easily just assume a problem where there isn’t one. I would actually expect a person with a chronic and dangerous illness to have some more security in place than the average person. Something like Life Alert might have saved my mother. But an app showing that she was home, as one would expect at 7 a.m, would have done nothing. </p>
<p>Having some sort of system (app or otherwise) that “checks” on your child after not hearing from her for several days is much different than what the OP describes in her OP: " They are wanting me to download an app where they can keep tabs on me basically by knowing my location 24/7."</p>
<p>I’d say the OP likely knows her parents. I’m sure if they weren’t controlling and really just wanted it as a safety measure “just in case” then it is likely that the OP wouldn’t necessarily object. It’s that the OP said her parents already have controlling behavior and this is just the next level. </p>
<p>No. Don’t do it. Or get the app and leave the phone in your apartment. Or ask the paper boy to take it with him on his rounds. But don’t use it as your phone. </p>
<p>There are a lot of issues with this situation and you cant make broad generalizations about your parents. What is important to consider is why your parents feel the need to keep such close tabs on you. We have a child (21 yrs old) who does not have her sh** together and makes many poor decisions so we have to stay in her face. We HATE it. It is exhausting and we want her to be on her own. Her younger brother has it together, makes reasonable decisions, and so has much more independence from us, so much so that people consider us overly permissive parents. Our behavior is directly a response to what we view each child needs from us.</p>
<p>If you really have it all together and pay your own way, they can’t control you. Thank them for caring but cut the cord yourself. If you are still dependent on them and they feel your decisions need to be overseen, then you may still be a work in progress. Our daughter has brought down our credit rating because she thinks nothing of getting parking tickets and not paying them because she doesn’t have money. In order for her to be on our insurance policy, one of our names has to be on her car title along with hers so we are stuck with the negative impact of those unpaid parking tickets. It would cost an additional $3000 a year for the car to be in her name and for her to have her own insurance policy. So what does a parent do? The obvious answer is to have title in her name and make her responsible for her own insurance. Without getting sidetracked by “her story”, suffice it to say it just isn’t easy black and white.</p>
<p>So, do you still need the support and oversight or are your parents really overprotective? Turning 18 does not miraculously give one all the answers. It is still your parents duty to assist you in developing from a child to young adult to when you can be set off as a fully independent individual with no leash. </p>
<p>Another app for sending out an alert if one needs help is called Kitestring. You set an alert and notification is sent to whoever you designate if you do not turn it off by a certain time. It is driven entirely by the user but it does not require sending a notice if you need help; it sends notice in a designated amount of time if you DON’T turn it off. This is helpful if someone is say walking home from the library or a bar alone late at night or even if you stop at a rest stop and there is a creeper who takes too much interest in you or in many potentially risky situations. Log info in the notification alert, determine who the alert would go to, when it should go to them, and what you would need them to do.</p>