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Today’s parents face the challenge of protecting their children in both the offline and online world. And some have turned to technology to help.

“Parents are understandably anxious in a society where we’re sometimes bombarded with news about terrible things happening to kids, and the fact that this technology exists can make us feel like we need to get it,” Devorah Heitner, author of Growing Up in Public: Coming of Age in a Digital World, told The Current’s host Matt Galloway. 

The growing presence of technology has led to new ways to keep children safe — digital tools and applications to surveil them are becoming a norm among today’s parents. 

Examples include location tracker phone apps, apps that monitor internet usage and wearable tracking devices. 

But Heitner is concerned about this trend. She says that a habitual dependence on technology to monitor children may be more harmful than helpful. 

“If we’re depending on tech to monitor our kids, we’re really undermining their relationship, and getting them focussed on being dishonest with us,” she said.

“It really undermines the ability to have the important conversations … and trust with our kids.” 

How are some parents tracking their children? 

James Smith, a father from Vancouver, B.C., uses the Apple AirTag tracking device on his eight-year-old daughter. 

“(It) goes in her school bag. It sort of gives me a bit of peace of mind, that I know when she puts it down, and runs off to go play, or if she’s on a field trip, I know where she is and where her bag is,” said Smith. 

“When she’s older, she’ll have more freedom and can reach me if and when she needs, but while she’s young, I still get to hold her hand as we cross the street, and check my phone to find her bag.” 

Brittany Walker, a mother in Denham Springs, La., uses an app called Life360 to monitor her children’s driving. 

“They’ll send you drive reports, telling you they had a lot of heavy braking, or they looked at their cell phones while they were driving,” said Walker. 

“Nobody really gives you a guidebook on parenting, and just because I do it one way, doesn’t mean that my way is right or somebody else’s way is right.” 

According to Heitner, “casual surveillance” has become a given for many parents. 

“It means you can pull your kid up on find my phone or (track) them in various other ways, and it can become habitual for parents even if they say, ‘Oh, I’m only going to use it in an emergency.” 

Having tough conversations is necessary  

While these apps could seem like an easy way for parents to keep an eye on their kids, it could cause children to rely only on their parents, and not develop their own instincts to navigate the world, says Heitner. 

“The thing I worry about the most is parents not teaching their kids skills that they need in an emergency — how to choose a safe and helpful adult to ask for help, how to ask for directions,” said Heitner. 

In addition, Heitner says it could cause children to develop hard feelings towards their parents — spurred from thinking their parents don’t trust them.  

Valerie Steeves, a professor in the department of criminology at the University of Ottawa, agrees.

She studies how young people use new media and with it — what happens when parents, with the intent of protecting them, monitor their digital space.

“The kids are telling us that (this) approach is what’s eroding the trust that allows them to bring us their problems, so we can help them solve them when they need our help,” said Steeves. 

As parents themselves, Heitner and Steeves have empathy toward the predicaments parents face keeping their children safe. They suggest parents have conversations with their children. 

“(It’s) so much better to have the proactive conversations about things like drugs and alcohol, about smoking and vaping … all the tough things that parents are like, ‘I don’t want to talk to my kids about (that),'” said Heitner. 

Communication is key  

Ashley Bell, a mother of two daughters in Calabogie, Ont., agrees that the key is communication based on respect.  

“I think by having that communication, you’re not ruining the trust between you and your child, and it gives them a better understanding of where you’re coming from,” said Bell. 

“And sometimes, yes, it backfires. Sometimes, they get mad at you, and they don’t understand. And then, it’s really, ‘Okay, let’s re-evaluate. Let’s see what works for both of us.'” 

When her oldest daughter started to become more independent — doing activities on her own like going to the mall and going on walks, Bell installed the Find My Kids app, to track her daughter’s phone. 

Her 13-year-old was initially angry that her mother could track her location and thought it was an invasion of privacy. 

“After talking to her, she kind of mellowed out about it. And she was like, ‘Hey, you know, I understand why you have it. I don’t necessarily like it, but I understand,'” said Bell. 

For her eldest’s online safety, Bell also initially used an app to monitor what she was doing on her iPad such as her browsing history, when her daughter was six, but she doesn’t use it much anymore. 

“She understands more of what stranger danger is, and how it can turn bad. We have open communication,” said Bell.

“It’s a bag of mixed emotions. You want to watch them grow, but you also want to protect them … it’s about guiding them, it’s not controlling them.” 

Steeves says that having conversations with your children instead of just surveilling them will create trust, which is fundamental for any relationship. 

Not having trust, will “erode the human conditions that we need to have healthy parent-child relationships,” said Steeves.