Should Parents Control Child's Phone Use?

This is a big question of the century. The iPhone is the single largest used commodity in the US, and almost every household has one iOS device in their proximity. iPhone is a device from Apple, a billion-dollar company that offers various other devices and all together form an ecosystem of products. So, if you are in control of a single device, you can effectively control several other devices. When the complete control stands at one device, a lot of things can be modified remotely. So, a great third-party app is great peace of mind too.

But, the question brings forth if parents should be allowed to control a child's phone? And, this brings up issues like privacy. It is about how old a kid is and if parents should experience complete authority or allow freedom to their kids. There are a lot of open questions, and secretly monitoring the kids' activities may or may not be suitable for some families.

Using an iPhone Responsibly

It is a parent's job to teach being responsible. If a parent wants to control the child's phone, they should lay the foundation for the same way before they even purchase their kid a device for their personal use.

1. Teach Them how to Use it Properly

If you have a kid who is unable to understand the fair use of a gadget like an iPhone, it is better to first teach them the right things. It is important as a parent to sit with them and teach them how to use a smartphone and how to use them responsibly. If you take the time to teach them the good aspects of using a powerful device, they will learn to use it responsibly. Simply giving away a gadget and hoping that they will learn everything on their own is not a good idea.

2. Allow Transparency Between

To make the relationship between the phone, the parent, and the kid-safe, transparency is important. If things are clear between the people, it is easier to maintain the relationship. It is not possible to keep control of the iPhone forcibly, but you can make a rule for them as you allow them to use certain things. And, this is possible before they get used to or addicted to it. Keep things clear and open. An iPhone has lots of tools and apps that allow parents to keep track of the iPhone's location, and activities online.

3. Apps for Monitoring

There are a ton of apps that you can use to control various aspects of your kid's iPhone. Today, apps can not only send their latest GPS location to your phone but also send their spending, apps they use, online activities, sites they visit, and more. This allows you to keep a track of the things they do, and also enable or disable any modifications. For example, you would like to enforce strict regulations on apps they download and install, and allow or revoke permissions to do this on their own.

Use of the Popular Kid-Safe Apps

Enabling parental control for iPhone is not that simple because iOS does not have inbuilt characteristics for that. Here is a set of tools or apps from the App Store that can help you in the task. It does not make the question of should parents control their kid's phone legitimate, but it shows the content and the community-driven efforts that find this crucial. IN terms of safety, these apps are a big help for parents.

• Bark is an app that takes safety very seriously. It works by monitoring text messages from the inbox (as well as sent items and outbox) and runs algorithms on them thoroughly with natural language processing. With access to 24 different social media networks, feed on video streaming like YouTube, Bark scans potential security concerns. Kids are more vulnerable to social media, and these messages can give a lot of clues. It can send alerts when they receive messages that look like cyber-bullying, depression, sexting, and other things.

• FBI Child ID is an app that helps parents save a kid's photos and other identification like height and characteristics like eye color and hair color, etc. in their databases. If a child is reported missing, they can use this data for quick recovery. The information is saved locally in the device, the iPhone itself, and not shared with law enforcement authorities unless the parents do it. This also features checklists and safety tips that can call 911 or emergency when needed.

• FamilyTracker is another safety app that targets on collecting the whereabouts of the family members. This app can track the latest geo-location of anyone you want but only if authorized. That is, the person should accept the request to a one-time tracking notification sent from the tracking device. IT uses the inbuilt messaging system to separate the normal text messages from the one that allows parents to track their kids. You can also play a piece of loud music or siren to attract a kid if the phone is silent.

Conclusion

The question of whether parents should control a child's phone use is always going to be a two-way ride. There is not a single answer. If it is about safety, one will say yes but if it is about being over-controlling, it is not advisable. From the rich stack of apps that enforce parental control for the iPhone, one can notice the trend. If you like and if you insist, there are tons of things you can do as a parent to control their kid's phone and its usage.

Similar to adding and removing restrictions on the Mac or Windows laptop, the parents can also enable or disable restrictions on using apps, payment gateways, time of use of the phone, the amount of use of various social media apps, and more. Settings these limits early on and then giving the device to your kids is a good idea to keep the transparency you desire and the safety for the kids. In that way, this control would not seem authoritative and forced upon.

Read Full Story