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5 Things to Pack for Your Child’s Spring Travel

spring trip kids

The makers of the MamaBear family tracker app know a little something about spring parenting. Every year spring means traveling for thousands of kids all around the United States. As our kids grow up, they want to do more than simple afternoon trips and sleepovers. Day trips to amusement parks, camping trips and spring break trips are all commonplace for modern tweens and teens. To ensure our children have a safe and easy spring travel experience, we’ve made a list of five good options parents should pack for their children.

1. Extra Clothes

Even when our kids pack well, they aren’t always prepared for sudden weather shifts or bad weather days that are fairly frequent in many spring break locations. Packing a few extra days’ worth of clothes will ensure your kids stay warm, clean and dry over a camping trip or extended spring trip.

2. Snacks

It’s utterly astounding what our kids think they can live off of when we aren’t around. A diet of fast food, gas station sandwiches and energy drinks will make any trip less fun for our kids. We’ve found that every time we pack healthy snacks and drinks for our kids, they eat them! They can gain valuable nutrition even away from home.

3. Money

Even when we take our kids with us on spring break, kids can be a bit of a money sink. Eating out for most meals, buying knick-knacks and general entertainment like arcades and movie theaters cost even more in many common spring destinations. Packing a little extra money away that our kids can access in case of an emergency can make all the difference to our kids’ vacation.

4. Cell Phone and an Extra Charger

Spring trips and spring break can make an excellent time to give a child a cellphone. Even for kids that already have a cellphone, parents can rest a little easier if they know the phone made it onto the trip and that chargers are available. Packing an extra charger lets us know the phone is charged and on for the entire trip. This is especially important if you’ve loaded installed a parenting app like the MamaBear family tracking app.

5. MamaBear app

The MamaBear family tracking app was made to give parents peace of mind over exactly this type of occasion. With MamaBear installed onto a child’s phone, a parent can easily monitor their locations, as well as their social activity. This lets us know our kids are behaving as much as we expect them to over a spring trip.

By following these five easy tips from the makers of the MamaBear family tracking app, parents can make sure their children have a safe and successful spring trip.

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Android Parental Control – What are your options?

android parental control app

The invention of smartphones and social media combined with younger children now having cell phones has led to new needs and new possibilities in parenting.  With the added responsibility and dangers associated with smartphone ownership, it’s no surprise that parents quickly turn to child monitoring and parental control apps. There are several parental control apps and options for Android; we’ll take a look at a few. It’s also good to remember, when it comes to parental control apps, to consider very specifically what the app needs to do for your family.

We need parental control apps for a variety of reasons. Our own peace of mind as parents is as good of a reason as any when it comes to wondering about a child’s whereabouts and well-being. Children exploring boundaries can also require more intense scrutiny than we’re able to gather simply by observing in the home as parents. Some parental controls are necessary to keep children from texting too much; some are simply good for curbing problem behaviors.

Which Android Parental Control Apps Should You Use?

The Android platform offers a few good options for parental monitoring and control apps. For younger children, apps like Reward Chart can make for an easy transition into parental monitoring, as well as enforcing good behavior. Apps that prevent tampering with the phone like Kids Place are popular with parents, but not always with kids. Apps that monitor location and social media, as well as phone usage are also popular with parents, though require a monthly service fee.

Apps like Kids Place and Kid Mode can be used to prevent all tampering with a phone. Parents can install these types of apps to choose which apps and features the child can access. Apps like Reward Chart, if installed early in a child’s phone progression, can help a child develop good behaviors and make the adjustment to parental monitoring apps easy.

Monitoring apps like Code9, MMGuardian and Phone Control give parents varying monitoring options but come with monthly or up-front fees. Other family locator apps can track children using GPS, but most come with few options. Norton Online Family offers online monitoring but lacks GPS tracking or location alerts. MamaBear offers multiple GPS monitoring options, as well as social Media and driving speed alerts, making it an excellent, well-rounded solution to parental control apps and is free during its beta launch.

General GPS monitoring apps are good, but they don’t provide as much depth with additional alerts and multi-functionality. Apps that prevent tampering are a good idea if a parent wants to be sure that software stays put. When combined with the MamaBear app, these apps give parents a free, comprehensive solution for child monitoring and parental control.

What Android parental control apps have you tried?

Let us know in the comments section below.

Looking for a parental control app for your Android device? We review the top 8 parental control apps on Android devices.
Android Mobile Apps
Date Published: 01/11/2013
4 / 5 stars