Daughter sharing iPhone location with us. Discuss?

Our daughter has started driving recently. When I started driving, I had to tell my parents where I was going, what I'd be doing, whom I'd be doing it with, and when I could be expected back. In the late 80s, nobody had cell phones, much less smartphones, but now we can share our location with each other (i.e. Where I can see where she is at any given time.

I want to discuss the pros and cons of doing so. Here are the reasons I've identified:

- In case of an emergency, we will know where she is. God forbid she is in a situation where she can't tell us where she is, we will be able to go to her. Of course knowing only her location doesn't mean that she is ok, but it does give us peace of mind.

- It will prevent her from lying about her whereabouts. We will not be monitoring her location on a minute-by-minute basis, but she will know that we can tell her location. This will prevent her from lying to us, even if we don't look at the map that particular night. Granted, we won't be able to tell what she's doing, but again, it's something.

- If she's stuck in traffic, we can tell when she'll get home without her having to pull over and text us.

- In case she loses her phone (as many teens tend to do!), we will be able to tell where it is, and help find it. This only works in the first few hours or at most, 1 day, but it still helps.

She will be told that we will never ever show up unannounced at her location unless we suspect something is seriously wrong.

I wouldn't do this to my daughter. She's 17 and has been driving for a year. I let her go where she wants, within reason. I have to know the place she's going, when she's leaving, who she's going with and the time she plans to be home. If she doesn't call me ahead of time to tell me that she's going to be late, (if she's going to be late) she gets her car taken away for two days. If she lies about who is going, or where she goes then she gets her car taken for a week. The time it gets taken away increases more and more as she does it. I've jas to take her car away once because she was careless and came home nearly an hour late. I don't mind 5-10 minutes late, but a whole hour. I was terrified. I think you should be more lenient with her, you're smothering her in my opinion, but again it's your choice.

Your list is good with the massive exception of "it will tell us if she is lying."

No.

Wrong.

This is a 17 year old. If you don't trust her to make decisions at 17, when are you going to trust her? At 17 and a half? 18? 19?

This kind of micromanaging is inappropriate because it won't do what you think it will do - it will not keep her under your control. Oh, a superficial compliance perhaps, but also a resentment, just as you would resent a constant presumption of wrongdoing by YOUR elders.

Have you taught her values and intelligent decisionmaking to your best ability? Ok then. Now you see the result.

That doesn't mean your relationship is over. You're still there to offer advise and support, when asked, and you have every expectation that you should be told the truth and that you still have custody over her major spending decisions and so on.

If you have evidence of lying, you take action, but you don't go fishing for it. You don't go presuming it. You don't actively have a literal radar map of it.

That's my advice anyway

You don't need to set up a federal case here. This isn't a discussion that you need to win over your child or convince her. You are the adult here and you pay the bills. Your child is a minor. It is a condition of having a phone and having access to a car that her phone be one and enabled with a product like Find Friends.

No application, no phone and no car. Very simple and it works every time.

Sounds fair, i'm sure your daughter will agree with this