Everybody else was doing it. The idea that we are living in an unsafe world, which requires parents like me to spy on our kids<\/a> with an AirTag, a smartphone<\/a>, or by using a live location sharing app like Life360, is the new normal. Last year, the shoe company Skechers even launched a children\u2019s shoe with a hidden space to handily slot in a tracking tag, and I\u2019ve heard of other parents buying silicone holders that clip onto laces to keep the AirTag secure on different types of trainers.<\/p>\n Originally, AirTags<\/a> were launched by Apple in 2021 to track belongings, but it didn\u2019t take long before parents realised they could use them to keep tabs on their children. Parents such as Mike and Zara Tindall<\/a>, whose eldest daughter Mia, 11, was spotted racing around the Burghley Horse Trials in Lincolnshire in 2024 with an AirTag attached to the belt loop of her shorts. <\/p>\n I thought using trackers would give me peace of mind \u2013 but it did the opposite. It turned me into a neurotic and paranoid mother, as I started to check my phone regularly for updates on their location. If I couldn\u2019t find Lola, now nine, and Liberty, seven, for a second in the park, I\u2019d catastrophise it as a kidnapping and ping the AirTag. As I tracked their movements during outings without me, scenes flashed momentarily in my mind from missing child thrillers like All Her Fault, when Sarah Snook\u2019s character picks her child up from a playdate, but her son is not there (and, I might add, his online tracker is found smashed in the school car park).<\/p>\n I started to question the philosophy behind my life as a CCTV parent: what the hell was I doing? I had been perfectly relaxed until I got addicted to stalking my kids<\/a>.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Mike and Zara Tindall use an AirTag on their daughter Mia (second left), now 11 (PA)<\/p>\n The AirTags also began to instil fear in my children. They questioned why they had these mini discs in their bags, pockets, or swim bags. \u201cAre we unsafe, Mummy? Why are you tracking us?\u201d was the general theme. This was at the start of 2025 \u2013 I\u2019d been using them on and off since 2022. I decided that enough was enough; it was time to take a more free-range path of trust. <\/p>\n I had to have a major rethink \u2013 just like a group of health experts are currently advising parents to do, urging them to \u201cpause on tracking\u201d, while reconsidering whether \u201cthe surveillance childhood we are sleepwalking into is really benefiting our children\u201d.<\/p>\n Generation Focus<\/a>, a campaign group aiming to make schools smartphone<\/a>-free, is sounding the alarm on tracking kids with a letter signed by 74 professionals, who claim tracking is just another extension of damaging helicopter parenting.<\/p>\n It says it breeds anxiety in the younger generation and makes them less free-thinking and independent. Tracking kids \u201cundermines a child\u2019s ability to develop a sense of autonomy\u201d and risks \u201cpreventing them from learning vital real-life skills\u201d, such as \u201clearning how to find a safe place and ask for help, and knowing what to do in an emergency without a smartphone\u201d. <\/p>\n When we track children, it adds, \u201cwe are implicitly telling them that the world is unsafe\u201d. It also pointed out that carrying a smartphone can actually be dangerous because it could make a child a target for mugging. <\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Tracking kids with an AirTag or a smartphone risks making them anxious, according to experts (Getty)<\/p>\n![\"Mike](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/PA-77389935.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Tracking](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/iStock-2228538477.jpeg\")
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