<i>Why do parents track their children? Kids are tougher than parents credit them for. It&#x27;s unfortunate that new technology will let parents hover forever.</i><p>That&#x27;s me. I &quot;stalk&quot; my children. Here&#x27;s the long story of why.<p>I live in a relatively safe area, the suburbs of Portland Oregon. There&#x27;s a fair amount of petty property crime, which tends to be tolerated if not quite condoned.<p>Fortunately the region has generally investigated violent crimes quite aggressively, and the violent crime rate is relatively low compared to many parts of the country.<p>But that doesn&#x27;t mean there aren&#x27;t bad guys, violent sociopaths who live in the area. People like that live everywhere. E.g. here&#x27;s something horrible that happened just a few miles away to two girls, one age 12 the other age 13: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Ward_Weaver_III#Murders_of_Ashley_Pond_and_Miranda_Gaddis" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Ward_Weaver_III#Murders_of_Ash...</a><p>My girls were just about that age when they got iPhones. So, I try to keep an eye on them. There&#x27;s a slight chance they&#x27;ll run into some serious danger and I might be able to help.<p>But, more realistically, it helps kids stay out of trouble, because they know there&#x27;s an increased probability that they will get caught. It&#x27;s not perfect. E.g. my older daughter was only supposed to drive my car from home to high school and back. But she chose to drive off campus at lunch. And, since she was a very inexperienced driver, she got into a car accident. So, even when she knew that dad might be stalking her, she chose to be a free spirit. That&#x27;s just how some kids are.<p>Certainly some kids will be resourceful enough to hack their phones. More power to them! But there are simpler ways. My older one simply turns off location services and then blames it on &quot;Low Power Mode&quot;.