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GPS Watch w/ SD

CaliforniaDreamer's picture

My SD (well soon to be in 3 weeks!) showed up this weekend with a new GPS Gizmo Watch that has a buily in cell phone.  I understand the concept of safety for children and having something like that on her when she's at a friends, a camp or somehwere without parents/family or trusted adults is fine.  However the only reason BM got it for her was to be able to track where we go, when we go places and to all her constantly while she is with us.  The last few visits we've had an issue where BM wants to talk to her close to bedtime, and once she was asleep already.  We let BM know she was sleeping and we'd have her call first thing in the morning.  She flipped out and called the cops on us saying she was concerned for her daughters welfare.  It was completely ridiculous and that has never in her 9 years of life as a child ever happened while with her dad.  FH also texted BM last visit and asked her to please keep the calls positive, as in the past she just rants about what she's doing without SD making her feel bad about being at our house.  I'm pretty sure that is what effected her enjoying horse camp the rest of the week last visit.  Her mood totally changed about it after she spoke with her mom.

 With some research we've found she can setup locations and get notified any time SD leaves those locations, and that she can make the phone auto answer and listen to whatever we are saying.  If the watch wasn't going to be used for those reasons, and my FH also had the same access to the watch as BM we'd be more okay with it.

For now the solution was to tell SD to leave it with her BM, either in the car or house, as we don't want electronics from the other house coming to ours in case they get broken.  Basically we don't want to be accused of breaking it, or BM claiming it broke at our house and we then have to pay for it.  We left out the rest of our reasons to SD, she doesn't really need to know all the rest of it.

Does anyone have experience with these watches, can you have somehting in a court order done around usage of these at each home (we are having the agreemnet redone anyway soon so figured I'd ask for any verbage that be useful)?

Comments

Major Blunder's picture

I have heard about devices like this, not the watch itself and the concept for parents with children like age say 7 and up ( my own age terms here) where they start to hang out with neighborhood friends is a great idea for knowing their where abouts, I’m not real keen on the auto answer feature, way too 1984 for me.

Good move about not allowing it in your home and good move on your said reason why !

CaliforniaDreamer's picture

Thanks! From what I understand we can only disable it if we have access to the app through our phone, which we don't have and there is no way BM is going to give us access.  I'd still be concerned about her calling to listen in to our conversations though.  Nothing to hide, it's just very invasive and there isn't anything that necessitates that type of monitoring in our home.

thinkthrice's picture

which i understand you can make calls from.  And keep the watch to give it back to her when she leaves.  This way the BM can't track your every move and call her on demand;  after all it is your DH's time and not the BM's.

Thumper's picture

I would throw it in her front yard...

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Bm has zero authority to expect, plant,  demand, scream DH to allow anything inside his home he does not want.

BM can track the child during HER visitation with BM. Apparently bm is not such a swift job keeping an eye on her daughter or a GPS would not be needed.

It is doubtful a Judge would order dh to accept cell phones or other electronics inside HIS home when DH is against it. For one thing it is a privacy issue.

Be careful about cameras bring brought in by way of  bm house or bm's family.