The Importance of Parental Controls

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Internet, social media, IM chats, smartphones, and tablets are inevitable part of today’s life and now plays a big role in parents raising children.

Today’s children are tech-savvy and know how to use different web-connected devices, even better than their parents do. Because children are immersed in technology, it is more common now that parents may not pay attention to their kid’s online activities; that is one of the biggest mistakes parents can make.

Why the importance of parental controls?

95% of American kids ages 12-17 have an access to the Internet
55% of teen web users have seen or suffered from cyberbullying accidents
50% of victims never tell parents about that
There are many sex offenders online (there are around 800,000 only registered ones not to mention unknown) and many of them have an access to the Internet
Almost a quarter of the number of their victims is aged 10-12 years old

Parents’ supervision and use of refog tools can put an end to this tendency and efficiently fight back dangers that threaten children online.

What is the Most Efficient Way to Protect Kids?

Start early to discuss appropriate online behavior, spend your time surfing through the Internet together with your children showing them how to use everything in the web properly and what is appropriate and inappropriate online. Make sure that your kid trusts you enough to ask for help if something goes wrong online or someone says or shows something that makes kid feel worried or stressed.

A trust-based relationship is something every family should have. When your kid enters a rebellious teen age, however, there can be problems with trust, almost guaranteed.

Benefit from using monitoring parental control apps – they are the only way to keep track of all kid’s actions on the Internet.

Good parental control app is able to provide well-rounded information about:

web browsing history
texting
emails
social media
voice calls
record keystrokes
look through installed apps including kindergarten games for kids like Teddy Colorbook
look through the files stored on the device
filter online content
block access to the Internet

Parental Controls on the Computer

Look for built in OS parental controls, remote monitoring and managing apps that are able to limit screen time, set certain hours when kid can use his PC or a smartphone, block installation of inappropriate apps or forbid in-app payments, lock the device, etc.

MAC

Keyloggers

Parental Controls on Mobile

Take into consideration that handheld devices can now easily replace home PCs and teens often prefer to use their smartphones and tablets to surf through their social medial accounts or favorite websites. In this case mobile monitoring apps are a necessity to parents. They can help to get a clear vision of the teen’s social circle, review phone calls and messages, look through files and calendar events. Another useful feature is to to check GPS location with help of the app and get notifications if your child enters forbidden zone, leaves home, or goes somewhere they should not be.

iOS

Android

Effective Parental Control Software

Qustodio is designed to supervise, manage, and protect your child’s device use on the go! The beauty of Qustodio is you can run it in stealth mode on any computer user and configure it remotely from any device. It is free for up to one device and a paid version is available for more functions and devices. Check the video to learn more.