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Happy New Year From MamaBear

Happy New Year from the MamaBear team! Well . . . do you have your New Year’s Resolutions planned?  They are so hard to stick to, right? It’s hard because it’s discipline. Ultimately, New Year’s resolutions are all about discipline and accountability. Working out when we say we’re going to work out. Skipping fries when we say we’re going to cut carbs. Consistency is hard to maintain with new habits. We’ve all broken a few resolutions here or there, and we all know how hard it can be to maintain constant discipline.

If we, as adults, have a hard time with discipline, it is no wonder that our kids battle with it just as much. It’s human nature to want to explore and push boundaries. I haven’t found a parent yet that says, “My kids do exactly what they are supposed to after being told just one time.” As many parents know, it’s about consistent reinforcement.

Obviously we feel that keeping a watchful eye on our children is a good idea – it’s why we created the MamaBear app in the first place. But remember, no one is perfect. Not us as parents and certainly not our children. If we can’t keep our own New Year’s resolutions every time, then maybe we can show some empathy when we feel overwhelmed by our words of repetitive discipline.

We encourage parents to use MamaBear as a tool to gather information. Information to have continued, relevant, consistent conversations about important issues like appropriate behavior on social media, why certain places are off limits and why accountability is important. It’s not hard to teach kids the importance of showing up for practice when they say they will. It just takes consistent reinforcement, even when a child strays a bit.

Going over the speed limit, visiting places we’d rather our kids not visit or perhaps taking a day off school without you knowing are ways boundaries could be tested. We all tested our boundaries growing up, now we have tools like MamaBear that give us vital information to talk about consequences. Tools to give our children consistent and empathetic dialog when they push against our boundaries in the New Year.  Make it a great 2013!

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New Phones – Happy Kids – Anxious Parents

social media tracking

I’m sure you experienced pure delight on your child’s face when they unwrapped their new phone! Now it’s time to decide what parenting measures you need to protect them while they have a new, very powerful piece of technology. Many parents turn to monitoring apps, also known as parental control apps, as well as measures to keep the child from tampering with the monitoring tools. Follow this quick and easy advice on setting up and choosing the right parenting restrictions and monitoring for a child’s new phone.

Device Restrictions:

On iPhones:

– Go to the “Settings” app on the phone and click “General”
– Scroll down to select “Restrictions”
– After clicking “Enable Restrictions” and entering a private passcode, parents can set up restrictions for usage, content, location and more.
– Switch the button off for “Deleting Apps” to prevent the child from tampering with any apps meant for monitoring, like the MamaBear App.

On Android supported devices:

– Go to the Google Play store and click on “Settings”
– Select content filtering to allow your preferred maturity level
– Lock the settings, by touching ‘Set or Change PIN’ in the Google Play “Settings” area
– Unlike device settings on Apple, you’ll need to turn to the App Store to install apps to provide similar device restrictions
– For instance, the Kid’s Place app sets what apps you want your child to be able to open, limiting device features.

Content:

On an iPhone in the restrictions area described above you can restrict content of music, movies, shows, and apps based on the child’s age.

On Android devices they allow filtering by maturity level. You can see how they define maturity level here: http://support.google.com/googleplay/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1075738
Using the MamaBear App can bring to parent’s attention use of “restricted” words deemed by the parent on Facebook and Instagram.

Usage:

Typically usage restrictions, like limiting text messaging, phone calls and data is best done by contacting the service carrier for the individual device. There are also apps available that can restrict phone usage while driving like the DriveSmart app.

Location:

For many parents a useful feature of their kid’s GPS enabled smartphone is knowing where they are and where they’ve been. The MamaBear App parenting app is invaluable in this regard, offering real time monitoring and location alerts. Parents can access all of the alerts functions through the settings menu. Driving alerts use a simple on or off interface and allows parents to choose a maximum speed. Though you may want some apps to use your child’s location to take advantage of specific features, not all apps need to know your child’s location.

On iPhone go to “Settings” then “General” and then “Privacy.” Tap on location services to see all the apps that are using the location of the phone. If it’s necessary for the app to have location services leave it on. If not, you can turn off location services for particular apps.

On Android, go to “Settings” and click “Apps.” You’ll need to click each app to see if they have location permission.

Using these simple tips will help parents keep their new smartphone users safe and give their kids some freedom with their new best friends. I promise they won’t be leaving home without it.

MamaBear is available on the Google Play store for Android phones and in the Apple App Store for iOS enabled phones and devices.

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Step-By-Step Guide To Getting Started With The MamaBear App

Child Tracking

MamaBear installs easily and parents can begin monitoring a child’s location, driving speed and social media activity immediately. Here is a step-by-step guide to getting started with the MamaBear app for iPhone and Android.

1. Download the App on the primary parent’s phone

The MamaBear child monitoring app is available in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Just search for MamaBear and click install. The Android or iOS web enabled smartphone or device will do the rest.

2. Sign Up

Once the app is downloaded on the parent’s phone, click on the icon from your home screen to open the app and then click “Sign Up” to create an account and add your family members.
*Note: add the phone number and/or e-mail address you want to monitor as the child. Added guardians will have the same parental view as the main account holder. The main account holder and guardians will only be able to view children’s location and alerts, not each others.

3. Download the MamaBear App on the child’s phone

Download MamaBear from google play or the iTunes App Store on your child’s phone. Select Log In. DO NOT select sign up. Log In with your child’s phone number and your password. The child will see three safety features on their view of the MamaBear App – Check In, Come Get Me, Emergency buttons for a discreet way of getting in touch with you.

4. Ensure the MamaBear App stays put

If your child closes MamaBear out of memory or deletes the app on their phone, you won’t receive location points. You will receive a notification if this happens and a check-in request button will appear when you tap your child’s icon if we haven’t received a location point from their phone in a while.

Here’s a video to help set up parental restrictions on iphone to prevent deleting apps:  Click Here To Watch

You can monitor Facebook and Instagram activity without your child logging in to the app. You’ll simply need their log in and password for each social site.

5. Set Up location, driving and social media alerts

On the parent’s phone MamaBear version, click on “Settings” (it’s the button that looks like a gear on the top right). Select your child under the “Family” tab. You will see the easy-to-follow options for setting up alerts for location, social media driving. Location alerts include a school alert, a safe places alert or a restricted places alert. Monitor Facebook and Instagram activity including restricted words alerts. Lastly set the driving sped you’d like to be alerted to if your child drives or rides over. Once opened, each of these alerts menu options has more in depth options for parents to use.

Child Tracker setup

6. Choose alert delivery type

Once the alerts are set up, it is just a matter of choosing your notification preference. In the “Settings” menu simply click “Edit Profile.” Scroll down to “Alert Type” to choose your preferred notification. Email alerts are delivered via email while Push based notification delivers alerts directly to the phone’s notification center. Push notification is the default alert types for MamaBear.

With these easy steps, parents are prepared with information and insight using the MamaBear child monitoring app. If you ever have any questions about using MamaBear, don’t hesitate to email us at info@localhost.

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Restricted “Friends” via Social Media Tracking?

social media tracking

Restricted “friends” is a bit of an oxymoron, right? But, ask yourself or even your kids, how often are you “friends” with people online that you may not actually want to be friends with? Or try this scenario – your child is an actual friend with someone you may not have a great impression. With the MamaBear app, parents can be alerted when their children are interacting with friends or followers that they label as restricted on Facebook and Instagram. MamaBear also allows parents to monitor new friends and other interactions on social media sites – like photo uploads and tags. It gives parents a wide range of flexibility and insight to your children’s friends.

Here’s what the MamaBear social media tracking app offers parents when monitoring a child’s Facebook and Instagram accounts:

  • Receive alerts in real-time when the child adds a friend on Facebook or follows someone new on Instagram
  • Select restricted friends to be notified when that person posts on your child’s accounts
  • Know when your child is tagged in a photo, message or at a location on Facebook
  • Know when your child uploads a new photo on Instagram
  • Create a restricted words list to be aware of inappropriate language, indications of hate or bullying on your child’s accounts

We know how influential our kids’ friends are – good and bad. MamaBear gives parents a chance to observe online social interactions. Parents can track conversations, tags and mentions from restricted friends via social media. This knowledge can provide a relevant topic of discussion for parents and children about the personal influencers in our kid’s lives and the consequences of them.

Restricted friends may be an oxymoron, but ensuring our children are associating with the right people is just good parenting. MamaBear social media tracking allows parents to intervene in real time if a child makes contact or is contacted by “friend” you want to keep your eye on using social media. Check out the MamaBear social media monitoring feature on your Iphone or Android phone and let us know what you think.