In this age of technology, most of us have contact with some form of electronic device. And of course, children are no exception to this rule.
Parents often allow their children to have a device that allows them to connect to the internet and play games, listen to music, or communicate with their friends. However, they often worry about things like cyberbullying or too much screen time.
Fortunately, however, there is a wide variety of parental control apps that can free a parent's hands and make them feel more secure when their child uses the family tablet or smartphone.
See also: Warning to drivers: Don't trust new technology
And remember that new dangers are constantly emerging, so educate your children about social media safety from a young age.
There are many different parental control apps that can meet your needs, depending on what your biggest concern is.
If you want the best parental controls, screen time limits, customizing various monitoring settings, and getting instant alerts for unusual or dangerous activity, then FamiSafe is a good choice. FamiSafe is the number one choice and one of the most comprehensive apps for monitoring your child’s phone usage. With history and suspicious activity monitoring capabilities to enforce screen time limits, FamiSafe has a lot to offer parents and is available for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and Kindle Fire devices.
If you're concerned about your kids' screen time, FamiSafe can monitor and limit screen time and add apps to a whitelist. Parents can see how much time their kids spend on their devices per day, week, or month, and see which apps they spend the most time on.
Armed with this information, parents can easily create extensive screen time rules, as well as block apps. It’s an incredibly powerful tool for parents dealing with kids who spend hours on their devices. When it comes to parental controls, parents with iOS and Android now have the ability to restrict individual apps and in-app purchases. They can also monitor browsing history and enable SafeSearch on iOS.
FamiSafe also has a content management feature that prevents in-app purchases on the App Store and blocks inappropriate content in Apple Books. Parents can also receive different types of notifications on their phones when children visit suspicious websites, watch blocked YouTube videos , or install unknown apps. FamiSafe is ideal for parents who need to monitor multiple children at the same time. Parents can see the main online activities of multiple children on the parental control panel and do not have to switch between different devices.
See also: Parents: Why they should use Google Family Link
If your concern is web browsing and social media safety, Qustodio is the best free parental control app for you.
The software is available for Windows PC, Mac, iOS, Android, and Kindle devices and provides a comprehensive dashboard to help you monitor your child's online activity. The free version allows you to monitor your child's Facebook and Twitter logins and set time controls.
Qustodio Premium also allows you to track your child's location, block certain games and apps, monitor calls and text messages, and more.
If what you need is to filter web content and set Internet time limits for multiple children and devices, one of the best parental control apps for you is ContentWatch Net Nanny 7 with Family Protection Pass. This software system can be installed on up to 10 different PC, Mac, or Android devices.
The software allows you to create different profiles/logins for each of your children and automatically filters web content for each user based on whether they fit the Child, Preteen, Teen or Adult profile. It also allows you to “mask” profanity on web pages. You can set Internet time limits for each child, using a weekly grid divided into 30-minute time slots.
The Family Protection Pass also comes with a free one-year license for Net Nanny Social, which can help you monitor your child's activity on social media sites.
If you want social media security and location tracking, MamaBear app is the one you need. It has so many useful features like social media monitoring, location tracking and notifications and much more.
With MamaBear you can monitor Instagram, Twitter and Facebook activity to see when they have new tags, check-ins or upload photos. You can also know when inappropriate language or bullying is posted on their profiles by creating a restricted word list. You can even receive notifications when your teen is driving or driving over a speed limit you set.
For those who are solely concerned about the amount of time their children spend on their devices, Screen Time can help. Screen Time allows parents to remotely monitor the amount of time their children spend on their mobile devices.
The app lets you set daily time limits, assign tasks for your kids to complete, see which apps your child uses the most, and more. It also offers instant pause, allowing parents to instantly pause their child's devices.
If you want to find YouTube videos that are kid-friendly and have ads and links blocked, choose YouTube Kids.
This version of YouTube offers a whitelist of videos with content suitable only for kids. There are also a whole range of parental controls so you can tailor the experience to your family's needs. You can create custom profiles for your child, block channels or videos, keep tabs on their watch history, turn search on or off, set a timer to limit kids' screen time, report videos, and more.
See also: Cyberbullying and some guidelines for Parental Control
For those concerned about cyberbullying and online safety monitoring, there's Bark. According to the app's Cyberbullying Prevention page, Bark analyzes all of your children's online activity to help detect cyberbullying.
It first considers a person's context and digital history to determine real threats to them. It monitors 30+ of the most popular social media apps and platforms. It notifies parents and children of both victims and abusers using Bark and provides actionable recommendations.
Often the solution is simple: block the bully online. In some cases, an incident is serious enough that you should start collecting evidence about the bullying, in case you need to take legal action.
Finally, if you want your child to be more aware of their smartphone obsession, there is Checky.
Teenagers are often addicted to their smartphones. While you'll probably never completely cure your child of their obsession, you can help them find a healthier balance.
Checky is a free app that tracks how many times a user checks their phone each day. You can compare how many times they checked their phone throughout the day or share and compare your stats with friends and family members.
Moment, available for iPhone, and Break Free, available for Android and soon iOS as well, are similar apps that aim to support healthier habits on the smartphone.
We must not forget that technology has offered us many valuable tools, such as certain parental control apps, that can protect children from online dangers.
