As they head off to school, a growing number of students are being carefully tracked -- not only by their teachers in class, but by their parents at home.

Family monitoring software is coming out of the woodwork. From communications companies such as Verizon and AT&T to tech giants like Google, software to track children via GPS satellites can keep parents worry free and happy. But are these apps just a natural evolution of modern society, where technology is integrated deep into our lives, or do they take things too far? 

Some argue that family tracking apps could create a false sense of security: suppose a child becomes separated from the device that's supposed to be tracking her, for example. And Internet privacy experts caution that if mom can see a map of her kid's whereabouts, so can someone else. 

"They need to know what kind of information is being gathered. How long is it being kept. Who has access to it. When is it going to get deleted," Jeschke cautioned.

Life360 C.E.O Chris Hulls acknowledges the advent of GPS family tracking raises new moral and legal issues, but he argues that tracking kids electronically will soon be the norm. 

"It's beyond just safety," Hulls said. "Every single electronic device is soon going to have a location associated with it, and that brings up a whole host of new products as well as concerns. But it really is a new world, and parents are adopting this technology at a very quick rate."