Parental control apps are software that helps parents monitor, manage, and limit their children's digital activities to ensure a safer online and device usage experience.
According to a post by The Guardian, 91% of kids own a smartphone by the age of 14 and can access the internet. With the dangers that arise from being online, it is important to use parental control apps to ensure the safety of your child's digital well-being.
These apps will help to protect children from excessive screen time, inappropriate content, and cyberbullying and help foster a healthy and balanced digital experience. We will explore how to use parental control apps and provide insights on what to look for when selecting a parental control app for your child.
Types of Parental Control Apps
There are different types of parental control apps based on the specific functionalities and services that they provide. They include:
App Blocking and Monitoring
These are apps used to monitor and restrict the usage of certain applications and games. They provide insights into metrics such as time used on certain apps and your children's every activity on said apps.
These helpful watchdogs also show how the child switches across different apps and grants you access to everything on their phones. This way, they help a parent prevent visits to inappropriate or distracting apps and shed light on their kids' digital habits.
Location Tracking
These apps provide real-time tracking of your child's location. With these apps, parents can monitor their child's whereabouts and even get alerts when their child enters or leaves designated areas.
Additionally, some apps integrate free GPS phone tracker services, which use phone numbers to offer similar location-tracking capabilities. This way, they enable parents to respond swiftly to any emerging concerns regarding their child's whereabouts.
Internet Filtering
These help create a safe space by blocking access to inappropriate, harmful, or unsuitable websites. They categorize and restrict content based on the predefined criteria given. Often, they allow parents to set different restrictions for different children and ensure that everyone is secure.
These apps help to ensure that children access age-appropriate information online.
Screen Time Management
These apps help to restrict the amount of time a child spends online or on apps. They allow parents to set a limit to how long their children can use their devices and provide reports on screen time habits. With the help of the metrics provided, these apps help parents reduce their children's screen time.
How Parental Control Apps Protect Children
Essentially, the focus of parental control apps is to enhance the safety and well-being of children online. Here are some of the solutions they provide to protect children in digital spaces:
Safety from Online Threats
Parental control apps help prevent online threats such as cyberbullying and inappropriate content. In the case of cyberbullying, they monitor communication channels and flag any harmful interactions that might happen.
This way, they alert parents to potential abusive and bullying behavior, enabling them to intervene early before irreversible damage is done.
Inappropriate content is surprisingly easily accessible, but these apps help to prevent visits to such sites by filtering mechanisms. Some even allow parents to flag sites as inappropriate, adding them to the restricted list. This ensures that a child can only consume age-appropriate content and reduces their risks of encountering any harmful content.
Time Management
Parental control apps encourage healthy habits by enabling parents to set screen time limits. This allows children to learn and develop healthy digital patterns, as well as have enough time for outdoor play and schoolwork. This can positively impact the child's general well-being and boost their productivity and sleep patterns.
Location Safety
Parental control apps provide parents with real-time updates on the location of their child's device, helping them keep track of their child's whereabouts at all times.
This ensures swift action in case the child enters restricted or harmful areas or gets sidetracked from planned routes. Knowing your child's exact location can come in handy in case any emergency arises or when the child is in an unfamiliar situation.
Effective Ways to Boost Parental Control Apps Usage
Here are some ways to maximize the use of parental control apps:
- Communication with your child: Explain to your child the dangers of the digital world and how having a monitoring app will help to curb said dangers. Once they know you're only looking out for them, they are more likely to consent to the monitoring.
- Choose the best app: With a variety of apps in the market to choose from, do your due diligence and settle on an app that will match your needs when it comes to protecting your kids.
- Understand possible evasion tactics: Just as there are many apps to help with curbing digital dangers, there are just as many that can help bypass restrictions or even alter device settings. Having knowledge of any possible evasion tactics to the app chosen will help parents maintain effective supervision by adjusting their strategies.
- Set reasonable limits: While setting screen limits, consider the age and online habits of your child to help come up with an appropriate limit.
- Customization options: Ensure that the app chosen allows you to make customizations to your liking. This will ensure that you configure the app to suit your child's situation better and hence allow effective use of the app for its core purpose.
Best Parental Control Apps
When it comes to choosing a tool that suits your needs perfectly, there's an abundance of options to choose from. Luckily, we're here to help! Here are our top picks for parental control apps:
GEOfinder
GEOfinder, accessible on both Android and iOS devices, is a phone carrier lookup website that allows users to track and get a device's exact location. GEOfinder uses IP geolocation to pinpoint the exact location of your child's device.
With the rise of VPNs to mask locations, GEOfinder allows you to find and get the exact location of a person even when they are using VPNs. It also allows users to explore its features using a trial version:
- Phone number is the only requirement to initiate tracking
- Offers an unlimited number of phone number carrier lookup requests
- Works with all devices and across all operating systems
- Boasts a friendly user interface
- Supports all mobile networks
- No installation required
- Guarantees 100% user anonymity
- Has unlimited geo-location requests
uMobix
uMobix is a spy app that helps parents gain access to their kids' devices. It is a comprehensive parental control app that works on phones and tablets.
It runs in hidden mode and allows parents to monitor and track their child's phone calls, online conversations, internet usage, and more. While other apps require time to update their software to match updated apps, uMobix allows seamless, continuous monitoring of apps even when an app is updated - and here's what it can offer you:
- Allows tracking of device locations
- Keeps track of all incoming and outgoing calls and messages
- Process access to pictures and videos stored in their gallery
- Grants parents the ability to listen and record phone calls
- Offers a choice between hidden and visible mode
- Allows remote access to the camera
- Offers a keylogger that captures everything that is typed
Spyic
Spyic is a powerful remote monitoring parental control app that enables parents to keep a close eye on their children. Operating in stealth mode, it allows you to always have access to all activity on your child's phone. It is compatible with both Android and iOS phones.
Spyic has robust security and complies with data privacy regulations to help safeguard any personal information collected.
The app also offers 24/7 customer support and is available in over 190 countries. In the rare event that you are dissatisfied with the product within the first 60 days, you are eligible for their money-back guarantee. And if all is well, here's what you will be getting:
- Allows accurate location tracking backed by GPS, Wi-Fi, and SIM tracking
- Offers geofencing, with alerts any time your child crosses defined boundaries
- Provides unfettered access to messages sent on all popular social media apps
- Generates a detailed call log, complete with incoming, outgoing, and missed calls
- Works in stealth mode
- Shows a comprehensive browsing history
Conclusion
For all its perks, technology has brought about unique dangers to our children, such as cyberbullying, addiction to apps and games, and access to inappropriate content.
Fortunately, parental control apps are here to the rescue. With them, parents can keep an eye on their children's digital activities and prevent their exposure to malicious online characters.