How to check my daughters iPhone 4?

My daughter has been skipping her school, texting a lot more then usual, leaves the house without telling me and runs away for periods of time to go on vacation with her friends. I don't want anything bad to happen to her and i've called the police and i'm afraid they are going to take her away from me. Currently she is grounded and I have taken the week off to make sure that she can't leave the house. I have her phone and computer. Can you help me get an app to read her texts and see the location of the phone for little to no cost?

How old is you're kid? And you could use Facebook to see her location. If she's gonna act stupid take away all her valuables and act up as a strong mother you can be.

All you have to do is, is just go to her text message icon and click it silly… If she deleted it… Then you won't be able to and for the location, you need to download i cloud and go to settings make sure to turn on the location thing for messages and i cloud, normally i would say you shouldnt snoop, but in this situation i think you should or just go to the app store and look for a gps

Put a GPS in there, i don't know, I'm not helpful there but don't tell her. I wouldnt check through her pics, just on her pictures to see anything bad. You could just talk to her about her behavior.

I'm pretty sure there's a way to track her movement with her phone (in a legal way of course). But to check her messages is a breach of privacy whether she is not an adult or not. It seems wrong to do, but i know you have the best of intentions to.
i wouldn't know how to check texts on her phone without hacking it (i assume it has a lock). But as an adult you have authority over your child to look at her texts, whether it is "fair" or not. I suggest you take her phone and tell her to give you the lock combination or you'll take it away, make sure she never goes out, and/or take away laptops, internet, her phone, tv privileges, etc…
i know you want her to be safe but there isn't any other way to force her to let you see what she's been up to. But your child seems to be wild.
i as a teen myself can relate, but i'm not as bad. The worst i've done is yell back (stand up for myself) to show i'm not weak or afraid, but never would i think to run away with friends without permission. To be honest i want them to know where i'm so they can be assured i'll be safe. I understood this years ago but i don't think she can learn this now, depending on how old she is. I know how dangerous it can be with drugs and alcohol everywhere and people, so i want them to know i'll be here and with friends so i'll be safe, i'm not usually bothered by them saying no (they rarely do, i know how bad it can be and i can get out of things easily, but i go out at day and stay until like 9).
perhaps you could move her to a different school for now and take away everything until she learns that she has to ask you first. But let her have some freedom, ask her where she is going when she wants to go. If you don't trust the place (especially at night) then say no, if you know she'll be safe with friends (and it's during the day) then let her, as long as she is in a not dangerous place.

restricting her freedom is what causes her to WANT to go out and run away at night.
school she shouldn't skip, but if vacations with friends are safe and not during school days or hours then let her