anyone use ways to track difficult child?

[laurann]

My difficult child got her license and a car recently and a week later it had its tire slashed and window broken one night, my husband heard it and gave police enough of getaway car info for the police to catch the guy. Well it turns out its gang related and she is hanging with people from two different gangs. Huge eye opener for us. She had us totally fooled as to her whereabouts. So now we secretly installed gps and I just added family mapping so I can track her whereabouts. She is furious about family mapping on her phone doesn't know about gps yet. Any thoughts or ideas on what else to do?
She was awful to deal with before now its off the charts.

 

[lmf64]

I know this is not the politically correct answer, but I'd tell her I pay the bills, you get tracked! Until she's 18 you are responsible for her and if she's not going to be truthful with you and is hanging around dangerous people she's endangering you and the rest of the family. They know where you live. They are not above stealing from families of people they know. They will not show her the right way to live. If it were my kid, I wouldn't need to worry about the tracking because she wouldn't be leaving the house without a parent or on the school bus.

 

[pasajes4]

I would not let her have the use of a car. Do you have a way of sending her somewhere else to live.

 

[welcometowitsend]

I Agree - these gang members know where you live. That would scare the heck out of me. The fact that your daughter is in danger also means your whole family is in danger. Do these people have guns?

I agree with the others - I don't think she'd be going anywhere but school and home.

 

[greenrene]

I agree with the above posters. To have gang members know where I live would scare the bejeebus out of me. Gangs are serious business, and the fact that she's hanging out with gang members is a major red flag. She is not only putting her own safety at huge risk but yours as well. Forget gps - I would take away her license, car, and phone, only letting her go to school.

 

[TerryJ2]

I'm with greenrene. NO privileges. Period.

 

[buddy]

You said she was awful before this ...what kinds of problems does she have? Does she have any diagnosed mental health or cognitive/ learning issues. Hindsight is 20/20 but she was probably not at all ready for the privelege of a car. Can you get any parenting support, therapy for her and you all as a family? Or have you been down that road?

 

[laurann]

well thanks for the replies she ended up taking off in car Saturday in next town over and we had to get police involved with gps it was easy to locate so her older brother to car back to college with him and she lost phone but is willing to now do counseling and try medications to get phone back. After lots of talks from us and police unfortunately we can/t get through to her that these people are bad news. When I said she was awful before I meant the anger issue.

 

[buddy]

Oh wow, so sorry. Hope you can find a good doctor and therapist for her. Really glad she's safe for now. You might want to make a copy of her contacts too.

Wishing you success. Hope you update us!

 

[DammitJanet]

As far as tracking her goes, which was actually your original question. Do you have that Onstar system? That tracks the cars. Also one rather sneaky thing to do is to hide a gps enabled cell phone in your car under a seat, such as an iPhone and then from your iPad you can do a Find My iPhone. Other phones do this as well with the android market too. You just have to download the app and it will show you on your computer. another thing is there are things as small as watches or even luggage tags you can put in the car that will track. I was looking for things to gps a child and was amazed at what is out there.

 

[greenrene]

I empathize with the anger issues - my difficult child has major anger issues which are just exhausting to deal with. She's not violent, but it's only because I think she knows that her entire world would come to a screeching halt if she ever went there.