Mother stops tracking children with AirTags, adopts trust over surveillance

Independent.co reports that a mother has stopped using Apple AirTags to track her children after concluding the devices increased her anxiety and harmed family dynamics. She began placing tags in her two children’s backpacks when they were six and four, and said she decided to stop at the start of 2025.

The piece notes AirTags were launched by Apple in 2021 to track belongings but were quickly repurposed by parents, and that consumer responses include products such as a Skechers children’s shoe with a hidden space for a tag. The article describes how constant location checks made the writer “neurotic and paranoid”, prompted her children to ask whether they were unsafe, and references a Generation Focus letter signed by 74 professionals urging parents to “pause on tracking” and warning it “undermines a child’s ability to develop a sense of autonomy” and may prevent learning vital real-life skills.

It also says there is no scientific proof yet that tracking children is harmful, while citing research published in Development and Psychology in 2025 linking helicopter parenting to amplified stress in first-year college students. The mother says she has moved to a more free-range approach, teaching her children what to do in emergencies and trying to address her own anxieties rather than “projecting them onto my children”.

Key Topics

Health, Airtag, Apple, Skechers, Generation Focus, Helicopter Parenting