Is Parental Control necessary?
The world is advancing exponentially, more so when it comes to digital advancements. As a parent, I often feel that we are raising a new breed of smart kids, who are exposed to gadgets right from their toddlerhood. Computers and tablets have become an integrated part of their lives, more so with schools adopting them in their curriculums. Even we allow children and teens to keep phones because it gives us a sense of children’s whereabouts and their safety. With increasing exposure to these gadgets, parental control has become paramount.
While talking to our children, explaining to them about Cybersafety and encouraging digitally responsible behavior is essential, for me, parental controls are the first step when it comes to the protection of young children. It often becomes challenging to weigh the right pros and cons of the digital exposure they are getting.
How to block inappropriate apps and games? How much information does a child need to share online? Which all social media should they access? How to protect them from cyberbullying and cyber attacks? How to limit them from unsuitable material like porn? Ways to track them when they are out? How to limit my child’s screen-time?
Are these questions bugging you as a parent?
Why do parents need Parental Control on children’s devices?
1. Cyber etiquette: Every other day we read about cyberbullying and cybercrime. Poor cyber habits, engaging in risky online behavior, disclosing too much personal information, often compromise the safety of children and teens and the whole family. Kids innocently often post and reveal a lot on social media, which is alarming for their safety. These unchecked actions result in cybercrime.
2. Screen-Time: As an adult, I need to admit that screen time is addictive and the same goes for children and teens too. Today young children use phones for texting and spend long hours in front of these gadgets. This can impact their mental and physical development. As a parent, I have always set time-limits on the usage for my son.
How can Parental Control keep children safe online?
These are the reasons, why Parental control needs to be there. Parental Controls are tools with the help of which parents can set controls on their child’s’ digital usage. This can be right from preventing children to access unsuitable online content to their activity tracking to setting up screen time.
One of the best award-winning Parenting Control app that has been highly useful is “Wondershare FamiSafe”.
What are the features of Wondershare FamiSafe?
FamiSafe parental control app is a feature-packed app to ensure the digital safety of children and teens. It comes bundled with features like,
App blocker :
“As per Forbes, there are close to ~9Mn mobile apps”[1].
We all have felt the heat of too much digital exposure. With such a massive surge in mobile apps, it is of utmost priority to block inappropriate apps as per your child’s age and usage pattern. Often children download games and apps from the app stores, without consulting parents and that can be risky.
With FamiSafe, you can blocks apps on kids’ devices as per their age. The apps are classified by age and you can block all the apps that are not as per their age. Further, you can also limit the app usage, by restricting the use of chosen apps on the device. Like, you can restrict Facebook usage during study/bedtime. This helps kids with good digital habits and allows them to focus on their study time without any digital distractions.
Website filter:
I remember reading news of a teen committing a crime. His search history reflected frequent searches on subjects like weapons. Wish, his parents had the access to browsing history and had website filter blocks.
One of the very useful tools of FamiSafe is, you can create web filters as per the inbuilt categories (like Adult, Drugs, and so on). This filter will filter out related inappropriate websites and create a safe digital world. Not just categories, you can also add any website to be blocked/allowed on your child’s device. The app also has a feature of checking their device history under incognito mode too.
Activity report:
We are often worried, whether our children are studying using the tab or simply watching videos and playing games in their study rooms. Isn’t it?
But the good news is that, with FamiSafe, you can:
- Monitor and view your kids’ daily internet activities
- You can know when and for how much duration apps have been used. For example, you can see the activity report stating that your teen played “Ageis Defenders” for more than an hour, with even the time mentioned (as in post 9 pm).
- You can review which sites and videos your kids have visited.
- One can keep a tap on the installed / uninstalled apps (from the ones that you have allowed).
Location tracking:
FamiSafe is a Family Locator app too, helping us keep our family safe, secure.
I need to agree that I often worry when my son goes out alone. This problem has been solved by FamiSafe too, as you can view your child’s real-time location. Now, you don’t need to ask your child about his/her whereabouts;). You get to know where they were at a certain time and which place are they visiting more often. You can also set safe Geo-fences, like “school” along with the time range. These are places where kids are not supposed to leave till a specific time. If your child leaves, then you will receive an alert of the same. Isn’t this helpful?
Screen Time:
Limiting screen time is one of the biggest challenges for parents.
FamiSafe helps you understand how much time (daily, weekly, monthly) our children are spending on their devices. Not just overall, you can also know app-wise time spent. According to your child’s usage, you can block/unblock your child’s device remotely to manage the screen time. A daily screen time limit can also be set for ease. This is highly effective in ensuring the right balance of digital usage allowed for kids.
Detects suspicious photos and text:
Teens often get influenced easily and their devices can have suspicious photos.
FamiSafe allows you to monitor kids’ albums and track suspicious photos. The app also sends alerts (as “Suspicious picture detection”), if such pictures are detected. Parents can then delete those images remotely.
Apart from these, it also has an added benefit for teens, as you can retrieve detailed driving history reports. As a parent, you can get the details around your teens’ average speed, top speed, driving distance, and more. Isn’t it a holistic package for your child’s cyber safety?
It is a boon for parents and this is the reason why they have won awards from The National Parenting Center, National Parenting Product Awards, and Mom’s Choice Awards in 2020. Why not try Famisafe for 3-day free trial. It is compatible with Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, and Kindle Fire too.
Safety is priceless, Be safe!
Reference:
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/02/28/there-are-now-89-million-mobile-apps-and-china-is-40-of-mobile-app-spending/?sh=1352e3aa21dd
View Comments (24)
yes agree dear, it is very important to keep our children safe online as during recent time they bound to be online for long time. personally I take this aspect seriously. right now, we use phone setting to have a parental control over their usage of apps and other websites. the app you had suggested sounds really good. will check out this for sure.
we live in an age where there is a massive virtual world and it will keep growing.. as parents hence it is our responsibility to be cautious and take necessary actions.. great post and options suggested..
FamiSafe is the need of the hour! As my son is approaching teenage his curiosity about social media is increasing too. This is a good way to keep a check on his online activities.
That's right as a parent it's always important to check with our kids what are they watching online but my kid is small so still I have time.. This is a informative post can plan before hand accordingly.
Kids are smart and that means parents need to be smarter, this is the only way to keep our children safe. And when it comes to spending time online then we have to be extra careful & vigilant because that's a different world altogether. This is such a helpful article, Jhilmil, I am bookmarking it, will be needing it in the future.
Thank you for writing this detailed post nad sharing about these apps and functions that can help us easily have control on devices. Technology if not handled well can be a menace
We are living in times where technology plays a very imp role and we cant escape its use and with online schooling and kids spending more time online, it's very imp to be vigilant as a parent. I keep a tab on wht my kids are watching and ask them to keep the volume up when they r watching anything on YouTube so I can hear it too. And if we feel the content is not appropriate for them, we ask them to stop it and mark it as "dont show this or dont want to see this".
Thanks dear for sharing about these apps to make a self control on electronic devices and activities. This post is very helpful for moms with young kids .
In this digital era, parents have one more responsibility to check on their screen time and with Famisafe this task looks easy. It has many features which as a parent I would like to have , will check this app when my child gets own digital device.
Screen time is a major issue with small kids. They are unable to understand the gravity of not cutting down the screentime. More parents talk about it more they are intrigued to watch. This new normal has topple all the rules of parenting.