Guide to Using Parental Control Apps to Keep Your Child Safe Online
In today’s digital age, keeping your child from accessing the internet is almost impossible. While the internet offers vast knowledge and opportunities, it exposes your child to online predators and inappropriate content. For this reason, ensuring that your child is safe while browsing the web is now paramount.
Thankfully, there are several practical measures to help you safeguard your child’s online activity, one of them being parental control apps. In this guide, we’ll deeply delve into parental control apps to help you better understand how to use them to keep your child safe.
Understanding the risks of not using parental control apps
Before taking a plunge into the complexity of parental control apps, you must grasp the risk of lacking them. Without parental control apps installed on your child’s device, they’re inevitably exposed to cyberbullying, predatory groomers, addiction, and age-inappropriate content. Double that with the harsh reality of most parents being unable to monitor their children 24/7, and the peril only heightens.
By understanding this much, you will take the necessary measures to keep your child safe online, even if it means equipping yourself with the knowledge to make informed decisions and the device to limit the level of access your child has online.
Parental control apps and how they work
So what are parental control apps, and how do they ensure your child’s safety online? It’s pretty simple. A parental control app is software that lets you remotely activate settings, monitor usage, and receive alerts when activity occurs on your child’s device.
The specifics of how each app works will vary; however, the concept remains the same. Most apps require a unique login and password to access the dashboard. From here, you can set up various restrictions and oversight rules, such as screen time limits, content filters, and location tracking.
App compatibility with the device
Once you’ve put a cap on the features you need, the next step is to ensure that the parental control app is compatible with your devices. Ideally, most major operating systems have parental control features built-in, such as Google Family Link, Microsoft Family Safety, and Apple Screen Time.
However, this might not always work for all the devices your child uses daily. In this case, you will have to outsource a third-party app suitable for those devices. Fortunately, the market is swarming with many matches, so ensure you check them out.
Tip: Remember to confirm parental control app compatibility by reading through the description and specifications, doing research, or talking to a trusted service provider.
Parental control app features and functionalities
Most parental control applications available today offer many features to help keep your child safe online. Some popular options are web filtering, social media monitoring, screen time management, location tracking, and device usage management. As a parent, you can invest in software that caters to one particular control and device, say screen time management for your child’s iOS iPad, or settle for a multi-device and multi-control software. It all comes down to what you need and your budget.
Set up age-appropriate restrictions
We’re now down to the appropriate age restriction. It’s natural to want to play it safe; however, you need to remember that children of different ages have different entertainment and educational needs. With that, the older your child gets, the more you’ll have to loosen up on the age restriction settings.
Depending on the software you choose, you should be able to access different levels of age customization, from web filtering and content blocking to timer restrictions and a digital activity tracker. You’ll have apps like Qustodio that will go as far as automatically adjusting the age restrictions as your child grows older, taking that weight off your shoulders.
Regular monitoring and communication
Lastly, it’s never enough to set up parental control apps on your child’s devices; that is just the first step. What’s more important is getting your children to understand why these measures have been implemented. Sit down with your child and talk them through cyber safety, consent, privacy settings, and boundaries; this should help get them on the same page as you and understand the value of online safety. Communicating with them about the risks and dangers of the internet also helps them form healthy online behavior, empowering them to take control and responsibility for their protection.
Wrapping Up
Safeguarding your child’s digital experience is essential in today’s technology-driven world. Thankfully, parental control apps help you get there by keeping their child’s internet usage safe and secure; however, it’s crucial to understand the benefits of these tools and which app best suits your family’s needs.
So before you hop on to the parental control bandwagon, ensure that you’ve done thorough research on the subject and talked to your kids about the importance of cyber security. Communication and digital safety tools should go a long way in preventing them from cyberbullying, grooming, online threats, and other malicious activities.
