Being a parent can be especially difficult in 2021. While you have worked hard to make sure that your children are safe online, technology often feels like it’s overtaking the actions you’ve been able to make. Your children need to be connected with their friends to make the best of their social lives, but many moms and dads find it hard to trust the world wide web with their children, especially when they are using a smartphone. To make this easier for you, this article will be exploring some easy tips to help you to keep tabs on your child’s smartphone usage without feeling like an oppressive parent.
App Monitoring
Some parents decide that they want to have full control over the child’s phone, actively limiting the apps that can be installed onto it. This can have a big negative impact on your relationship with your child, though, as you shouldn’t be monitoring these devices because you don’t trust them; you should be doing it to keep them safe. There are loads of modern apps that allow parents to keep an eye on what their kid’s phones are being used for. You will have the power to close apps and take control of the phone if you really need to, but your child will only ever have to deal with this if they do something wrong.
Location
The location tracking abilities of modern phones can be both a blessing and a curse for children. While you can quite easily install apps that give you a real-time readout of your kid’s location, this sort of tool is best used when you are worried that they are in an emergency situation. For example, if they don’t come home from school one evening, you could track their phone to make sure that they are just at one of the friend’s homes. There are a lot of tools that let you watch over your kid’s phone activities, making it nice and easy to do this without making it feel like you are taking control of their phone.
Honesty & Education
Many children feel confused when their parents put strict restrictions on their phones, unsure about the reasons behind this action. In most cases, taking the time to explain the online threats they face can be a good way to give them the tools they need to avoid them, and this can be much better than pushing them to explore parts of the internet that you don’t want them to see by restricting it to them. You should always push for honesty in this, but this also means that you have to be honest in return.
With all of this in mind, you should be feeling ready to get started on keeping your child’s phone safe without making yourself feel like an oppressive parent. A lot of people go through this process, finding it difficult to know what needs to be done when they are working to keep their children safe in the digital world, but there are loads of tools on the market to help out.
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