Planning to buy parental control app to monitor your child activities? Not sure about features to check? Don’t worry. In this article you will learn about important features to check before you buy any parental control application.
In this generation, kids often starts using smartphone once they cross certain age limit. Parents always cares about their children as they know the threats of using smartphone at early age. Children who falls between 7 to 16 age don’t know the casualties of using smartphone thus they trapped in bad situations like cyber bullying, cyber theft etc. Parents can’t directly sneak into their kids’ smartphones, so often looking for a Parental Control App can help to monitor a child’s smartphone activities and restrict the same.
Most teenagers are engaged with social media platforms. According to recent statistics, 85% of teens between 13 to 17 age are using social media and 70% of the teens have at least a single active social media account while 51% of them use social media daily.
According to the latest Kaspersky statistics, parents are mostly worried about their children’s online behavior and want to monitor and manage it. More than 50% of American respondents use parental control apps and 49% check their children’s Internet history on a regular basis. Overall 44% of parents report their children use digital devices under the supervision of either a parent (36%) or a family member (8%).
In the age of touch screen and smart technologies, everything is on the fingertips. With a smartphone and internet connection, you have access to all kind of information and content on the internet. While the internet is a free world, it is necessary that the activities of your kids are kept on tab. While you can’t deny them the use of a smartphone, they also do fail to understand safe internet browsing ethics. There have been several cases where their online activities have landed them in problems, some of which may take the extreme form of cyber bulling, identity thefts and even sexting. Kids don’t realize the repercussions of harmful internet activities until it’s too late. As a responsible parent, it is thus your duty to take precautionary measures. Parental monitoring app lets kids and teens have their privacy while allowing parents to intervene when something is not going in the right direction. Today, about 39% of parents use a parental monitoring app for filtering, monitoring or even blocking their kid’s online activity.
Why Parents Should Use Parental Control Apps
While there are a good number of reasons for using a parental monitoring app, the idea might not sit quite well with your kids. No modern kid would like or appreciate their parents knowing what they are doing online. It’s a matter of privacy. It is understandable why they would want their own space but with the right choice of monitoring app, parents can ensure that they (kids) don’t have a hint of being monitored. This helps both parents and kids and is the perfect solution to keep your child safe.
There are a lot many parental control and monitoring apps in the marketplace today. Choosing the right one can however be a difficult choice to make. It is necessary that you understand the several facets of the process. This step by step guide ensures that everything is taken care of.
Understanding the risks
The internet is a truckload of information on just about any subject. However, along with the advantages also come several dangers. At the end of the day, weather your kids like it or not, they would be safer with a little bit of monitoring and that should be your top priority. Internet security & privacy is must for everyone whether it’s for adults or kids. The risks of unmonitored internet activities include:
1. Adult content: We need to understand that exposure to adult content is a part of growing up in the digital world today. However, everything should come in the right time. According to statistics, 50% of kids in the age group of 10-17 are exposed (willingly and unwillingly) to pornographic content. Well, that’s definitely not the age when they should be interacting with such materials. Adult content isn’t just limited to pornographic films or pictures but also extend to gambling, drugs and other age-inappropriate content. While all of it is freely available on the internet, it can be a ‘devil’s playground’ and requires parental intervention.
2. Identity Theft: Now, this is a new kind of threat with digital media. Kids on the internet are impulsive. They won’t think twice before sharing personal details that may come back to bite in the back. There have been many cases when identities of kids have been stolen in this way to generate new records – sometimes even new social security numbers. With constant parental monitoring, you can ensure that this never happens.
3. Secret clubbing: For a kid, things like secret clubbing might be a ‘cool’ idea. But these unsupervised environments lead them to all the bad addictions, ranging from drugs to rapes. With a parental control app installed, you will have all the information of who your child chooses to interact online, share emails and pictures.
4. Internet addiction:
Too much of internet is itself a bad thing. Childhood is the time when they should spend more time in the playground, socializing and meeting other kids in a healthy environment. With parental monitoring app, you can keep a check on the amount of time your kid spends online.
5. Cyber bullying: Kids and their bullies go hand in hand. Previously they have been found in the playground or the neighborhood and now they have taken to online platforms. The consequences have several times been to the extreme of kids committing suicide. While kids are always embarrassed to share the same with their parents, a good monitoring app will ensure that things never get out of hand.
According to Cybersafe.asia survey in Philippines 80% kids experiences cyber bully through social media.
Understand What Parental Control Application or Software is About
Parental control and monitoring has become a necessity today. The most popular apps for the purpose offer automated tools that helps protects kids from both online and offline threats – threats that seem to find a way to their personal smartphones. Consequently, the right parental monitoring app should be able to inform parents about everything that the kid does on his/her device. The common tools that parents seeks include website blocking, time limiting, real time alerts for potentially dangerous materials, monitor instant messaging and the like. Split into three basic categories, parental control apps offer:
- Content filters : To filter age appropriate materials
- Usage control : Time limits to surfing / web browsing
- Monitoring : Tools for tracking activities like email interactions, messaging, browsing history, password/usernames and everything else.
With a good parental monitoring app, parents can be rest assured that they are doing their best while offering the benefits of new age technology to their kids. It is simultaneously necessary that parents discuss healthy internet habits with their kids and help them grow into responsible teens and adults.
With most parental monitoring software, the app needs to be installed into the kid’s device and it will anonymously send notifications to the parent’s phone or desktop panel (connected with the app). A large number of parental control apps are available for both iOS and Android devices and are compatible with most devices. Some parental control software won’t run on iPhone smartphones if they are not jailbreak devices.
What to Look For in Parental Control Software
The idea of parental monitoring is secretly monitoring your kid’s online activity and only intervenes when it’s necessary. Consequently,
- The app (already installed on their phones) should be hard to detect by the kids
- Should be easy to install – not all parents are geeks!
- Real time monitoring and alerts – That is the only way you can take immediate steps and rescue your kid from a dangerous situation
- Good technical Support – Is necessary to both understand and use the app
Digifloor team has discussed all important features with the team of TiSPY, a leading parental control app. Based on series of discussion, we have filtered out some important features every parents should look in Parental Monitoring Software. Here you go!
#1 It should block websites and apps (Sex, Violence and Drugs)
Adult websites adhering to the above categories are automatically flagged. The ideal parental control software/app should be able to identify such websites and block them instantly.
#2 Track and Monitor Text Messages
Parents should be able to go through all the interactions that have taken place from your kid’s device. You should also get complete details of the interactions including sender/receiver numbers, time, message content and other data. This should be available even if they have been erased from the source device.
#3 Track Multimedia Files (Clicked Photos and Videos)
This is particularly important to put a check on any kind of sexting that your kid gets involved in. While this is a breach of privacy, it is necessary to ensure that the content isn’t irresponsibly handled. Cyber threat is always there for kids & adults so there might be chances someone hack into the smartphone and use the photos or videos to blackmail kids. Child monitoring app should allow parents to view gallery photos and videos to understand weather they are not clicking and sharing sensitive photos.
#4 Location Tracking and Geo Fencing
Top Parental monitoring apps offer features like location tracking and geo fencing such that parents have real time information of where their kids are actually located and whether they have breached a safe perimeter.
#5 Track and Monitor Social Media Messages (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Gtalk, etc)
Again, tracking social content is necessary to understand what kind of interactions you kid is involved in. if you have a fair idea of what your kid shares and with whom, you can intervene on anything that looks suspicious – including strangers asking for personal details. There are plenty of messaging applications available on play store so make sure you check & track every installed instant messaging app.
#6 Control Applications and Contacts
Top parental monitoring apps also offer a high degree of control on what application the kid uses in his/her devices and what kin do contacts he/she has.
Benefits of Parental Control Apps
Parental control software is important because it allows parents to track the kids’ online activities and ensure online safety.
- Protect kids from irrelevant and inappropriate content
- Improve familiarity
- Improve ability to fight against cyber bullying
- Building relationships with parents and kids
- Improve peace of mind
Things Parents Should Take Care While Monitoring Their Kid’s
As already said, parental control and monitoring through spy apps is always a breach of privacy but a necessity. It’s a matter of trust and to maintain your relationship with your kid, it is necessary to encourage safe internet practices. Parents should understand what is agreeable for what age group. Of course, as your kid grows, he/she will invariably be exposed to content that isn’t supposed to be seen by a smaller kid. Parents should not be judgmental but just act responsibly.
Important Note
Here we have listed complete guide after deep research about risks in which child might get involved and how parents can look after them using Parental Control App/Software. Here the motive is very clear to help parents and should used by following respective government regulations. Here we strongly recommend reviewing respective application terms of services before you use and strictly follow the specified regulations. This article is just for an information purpose only, kindly do your research before you use any application.
