Parenting in the digital age has proven to be extremely challenging for parents and guardians. Every child is exposed to unlimited content on the internet, usually leaving them to sail through the murky waters of cyberspace by themselves. This has become every parents’ worst nightmare, while they try to keep up with the rapid advancements in technology. To make things worse, the internet has become an integral part of education, where kids are required to research different subjects online, discuss projects with their classmates, or even have online classrooms. Distinguishing whether your child is studying online, or reading some inappropriate content can be a difficult task for any adult. I can’t tell you not to worry, but there are some ways to help you out to, at least, have some idea of what your kids are doing online. Parental control apps gained huge popularity among parents giving them a little peace of mind. From your phone, you can monitor your children’s social media activities and also have an idea of how much time they spend online. This can give you back some control over your kids’ lives. Here are some benefits of using apps to keep a close look at youngsters’ affairs in a cyber world.
Shady content
Internet is full of questionable content that kids of any age can access leaving parents feeling totally helpless. Parental controls are the only way that adults can have oversight at what pages their children visit. With apps, you can restrict your child from seeing any content that you think is inappropriate for their age by blocking certain websites on their digital devices. In most cases, parents are unable to identify the content of every single website. This is why apps put an option to block categories. For example, parents can punch in that every site with “adult” content be blocked, or social media. However, it leaves them an option to make exclusions so that they can block social media except for Facebook, for example.
Monitor from everywhere
You don’t need to sit at home in order to see your kids’ online activities. Since the app is installed on your phone, you can monitor them wherever you go, from work, from the gym, if you go out at night. One more priceless feature that apps like mspy.co.uk have are GPS tracking of your kids’ movement, incoming and outgoing calls, all messages including the deleted ones, and everything they put out on their or someone else’s social media platform. And as an added bonus, you can always activate video and microphones on their smartphone to hear what’s going on in their surroundings.
Cyberbullying
The Internet has left children completely exposed and vulnerable to cyberbullying and abuse. With parental control apps and their features to monitor every incoming and outgoing message and calls, parents would have at least some window of opportunity to react on time. There is no such thing as stopping kids from using social media, at this day and age it’s simply not possible, and if not used properly it can wreak havoc in a child’s life, and a family’s life as a whole. Getting in touch with their friends at all times has become an essential part of their lives. Being immature as they are, kids sometimes share private family information with people online, like their address or if there are any safes or gun lockers in the house, which can be used to harm them or their family members. On the other hand, they sometimes use social media to post illegal or inappropriate content. This can bring a world of trouble for their parents, sometimes involving social services, child protective services, and even police. This is where parental control apps are put to use so that parents can react before any of this happens.
Hackers
Children are prime targets for hackers. They can be easily led to believe in just about anything, making them very appealing to cyber-criminals. Some studies confirmed that children are ten times more likely to download programs that on the first glance look legitimate but are actually viruses and malware. This puts your whole family at risk, exposing your personal information like bank accounts, addresses, passwords, and everything else you ever typed or looked at online. Furthermore, viruses can crash your operating system completely, locking your computer and even has the ability to spread to devices connected to it. Parental controls successfully prevent this by limiting downloads from unverified sources. This is something that you can’t teach your kids, these circumstances usually happen out of the blue. Therefore, to keep your kids and your digital devices safe, installing an app can, at least, get that worry off your mind.
Keep up with the technology
Using the latest apps can get you up to speed in the ever-evolving environment of cyberspace. While you are probably already using a smartphone, there are some apps and websites your kids are visiting, that you never heard of. So, to be on the safe side, or the safer side, you need to keep up with the latest developments in technology. Taking over control of what your kids are using and for what purposes, can help you to get a grip on things.
Internet addiction
Social media, video clips, and chat rooms are so much more interesting than playing sports or talking to your family. Nowadays, kids are glued to their screens, sometimes completely losing a track of time. Apps also let parents monitor how much time kids spend online.
Parental control has become a need for every parent to gain back control of their children’s lives. For a moment, parents were on the sidelines unable to get into the game and compete with the fast-paced environment of cyberspace. Just watching your kids, or having long talks with them is not going to get you far. Parents need to be parents, not their friends. They have friends to talk to, but for guidance, they should be able to turn to the adults in the family.
