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Top 5 Spring Break Family Safety Tips

It’s that time of year when some families take a break from the everyday by traveling somewhere warm for a week of family down time and fun. For other families, spring break may mean mom and dad work while the kids stay home. Regardless of whether you’re hitting the beach or sitting behind your desk, spring break is a departure from the regular schedule, creating a need to stay connected.

We’ve compiled a few safety tips that will help put parents’ minds at ease when their children are exploring new places on a family vacation or just have some extra downtime on their hands when they’re out of school for spring break.

 Spring Break Family Safety Tips

  1. Use Location Technology.  Knowing where your children are using mobile location technology like MamaBear can allow you to loosen the boundaries when in new places, giving your kids an exciting sense of independence as they explore.  Whether you’re at an amusement park, a beach resort or on a mountain, MamaBear can help you keep tabs on the family’s location. If you are at work and your kids are home alone, you can put your mind at ease knowing that if your kids roam the neighborhood with friends you can track their locations while at work.
  2.  Practice Social Media Safety. Discuss as a family the potential risk involved when revealing too much about where you are vacationing and how long you’ll be gone.  Oversharing on social media can leave your home  vulnerable.  No pictures of hotel room numbers, or other specific location indicators either.  If your kids are home alone, they should not share this information either, as it makes them vulnerable to any predators who might be watching. Monitor what the family’s posting to ensure safety.
  3. Talk About Stranger Danger.  We often feel comfortable in our day-to-day trusted community and social setting.  As we step out of our comfort zone when on vacation, it is important to create a greater sense of awareness for who’s around and caution the children with limits of conversation with others physically and virtually.
  4. Drive and Ride with Caution.  If the kids are driving or riding with others during spring break, it’s helpful to use a family safety app like MamaBear to be aware of how fast they’re going. Talk about the consequences associated with speeding and remind them of the importance of wearing seat belts and not drinking and driving or texting and driving.
  5. Have an Emergency Plan. Where will be the family’s meeting spot if connection is lost? Who are safe people to approach to ask for help? Quiz the family on the name and address of the hotel.  Carry identification and health insurance information in case of injury.

You Might Also Like: Teenage Safety Tips on their First Independent Vacation

We hope you have an opportunity to use this great time of year with a break from school  to connect with your family and create lifelong memories.  Stay safe out there.

 

 

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Top Five Messaging Apps Used by Teens that Parents Should Know About

TOP MESSAGING APPS

These days, it seems that SMS is quickly becoming “so 2013.” Once a mainstay of mobile communication for people of all ages – especially among tweens and teens — SMS or Short Message Service (AKA texting) is becoming secondary to social messaging apps that can be used to text extensively for free, rather than by fee.

According to one article, this year it is projected there will be 21 billion text messages sent as compared to almost 50 billion app-based messages.

Kids in particular are loving messaging apps, and an increasing number of software developers are catering to the upsurge in popularity of apps designed to allow people to message without texting fees.

Below are the top 5 messaging apps most popular with youth around the world that parents should be aware of and understand.

See Also: MamaBear Cell Phone Contract for Kids

  1. WhatsApp – WhatsApp Messenger, often referred to as the leader of the messaging apps, is used by millions of people worldwide. The Android app allows users to send and receive messages, pictures, audio notes and video messages. Group chat is also available. The first year is free, with a 99 cent annual charge every year after that. WhatsApp works with a user’s phone number, just like SMS, and integrates with an existing phone address book. You can also use the app to share location, exchange contacts, broadcast messages to contacts and more.  Facebook agreed to acquire WhatsApp for $16 billion.
  2. Kik – Kik is another smartphone messenger app. Unlike WhatsApp, Kik requires users to create and log in with a username, as opposed to using a phone number as an identity. According to Kik, this allows users to be “in complete control of who you talk to.” Kik touts itself as being “like a real conversation, where you know when your messages are delivered and read, and when the other person is typing back. This makes your conversations come to life.”
  3. LINE –Like other messaging apps, there are no limits to the number of messages that can be sent using the LINE app available for multiple operating systems. LINE also allows users to make free voice calls and  messages anywhere, anytime. The app also allows users to make video calls.  With LINE, users can send messages with icons, photos and location information. The app also includes a timeline feature.
  4. SnapChat – SnapChat is another popular messaging app for Android that allows users to share messages that include photos or videos (with a caption option), group chat and more. The app was designed to make messages brief and fleeting: users view it, laugh, and then the snap disappears from the screen – unless they take a screenshot! Another unique feature of this app is Snapchat Story, “a living narrative where each Snap lives for 24 hours until it disappears, making room for the new.”
  5. Viber- Viber allows people around the world to text, call and send photo and video messages with an Android, iOS, Windows devices and more for free. Viber Out can be used to make calls to non-Viber mobile and landline numbers at low rates. Like WhatsApp, on Viber, your phone number is your ID and the app syncs with a phone’s contact list. In addition to basic messaging services, Viber allows groups with up to 100 participants.

As tech trends shift with the winds, it’s crucial for parents to keep tabs on which apps their kids are using. Ask your kids if they are using messaging apps, and if so, which ones they like best. Be aware of how they are using these apps and as always, monitor. Keep an open line of dialog so you can make sure your kids are using messaging apps (and any apps on their mobile devices) safely.

photo credit: Summer Skyes 11 via photopin cc

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MamaBear Family Safety App Now Includes Twitter Monitoring

twitter monitoring

Parents with kids that use Twitter to follow celebrities and tweet to their friends (and strangers) now have a tool to help them know more about their kid’s activity on the popular social network.

MamaBear Family Safety App’s new version 2.8 for iOS and 2.5 for Android  features a new update offering parents the ability to monitor their children’s activity on Twitter.

Popular with people of all ages and especially with celebrities and their fans, Twitter is a social “microblogging” app through which users can write, read and share 140-character “tweets” on any subject. While Twitter offers privacy settings that allow users the option to approve follow requests, the default setting allows anyone can follow and see what a person tweets. So a child who uses Twitter without setting the account to private is sharing his or her messages with millions of Twitter users around the world.

See Also: Protecting Kids from Internet Stranger Danger

This can be unnerving for parents worried about who can see what their kids share via twitter – especially if they use hashtags with certain words (e.g. “Headed to #MainStreetMall 2day with my gurls”), because a hashtag before a word makes that word/phrase searchable by any Twitter user as a common filtering option.

The new MamaBear Twitter update allows parents to monitor their child’s Twitter account for restricted words, who’s following them and who they’re following.

By using all social monitoring features on MamaBear 2.8 for iOS and 2.5 for Android, parents will save time and keep their children safe staying “in the know” with information from their child’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram all at once.

Stay in touch and let us know what you think of MamaBear by emailing us at info@localhost.  Your feedback is critical in our mission to protect children.

 

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Comparing Family Safety Apps: MamaBear and Net Nanny

Choosing the right family safety app isn’t easy. That’s why we’re taking the time to compare the features of MamaBear with a few other family safety services now on the market.

Let’s take a look at Net Nanny and review it’s similarities and differences compared to MamaBear.

Net Nanny created internet filtering software that allows parents to be in control of web browsing – preventing selected sites to be viewed while allowing others. Initially the software was created for computers and now has extended to mobile web browsing. They clearly state their benefit as families being able to “use the Internet as a resource for homework and fun without fear of accidental exposure to undesirable material, or encounters with dangerous individuals.” Net Nanny has added social media monitoring and mobile device monitoring.

The Net Nanny service allows parents to:

  • Set filtering for nearly twenty categories of online content to either block the site, send a warning or allow the child to view;
  • Send a warning message or completely block access to adult content like pornography;
  • Limit the total number of hours spent on the internet in a 24-hour period OR set specific times of the day when a child is allowed to be online;
  • View a web page without being bombarded by vulgar language;
  • Monitor social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin, Tumblr, Google+)  in order to protect kids from online threats and monitor activities related to your child’s “friends,” cyberbullying, sexual predators, privacy concerns and reputation-damaging pictures or videos;
  • Send parents reports and mail alerts about a child’s online activity;
  • Check usage reports, change a child’s profile settings and much more remotely from any computer with an Internet connection;
  • Use preset user profiles or customize settings for each family member; each computer can have unlimited user profiles.

Mobile device monitoring on iOS and Android replaces the mobile browser being used with Net Nanny’s browser for secured browsing.   Net Nanny can also set time controls and monitor apps used on Android devices.

See Also: Protecting Kids from Internet Stranger Danger

MamaBear’s main similarity to Net Nanny is social media monitoring.  Both allow parents to monitor a child’s social media accounts to protect them from cyberbullying, predators and other threats. Both apps send parents alerts based on a child’s online activity.

There are some key differences between the services as well. Net Nanny is primarily a web browsing monitoring service for desktops and mobile devices with added service for social. MamaBear is taking a mobile first strategy focusing on the child’s location, social media activity and driving speed delivering all communication through the parent’s mobile device reducing the amount of emailed reports to thumb through and figure out.

Location monitoring and driving speed awareness are services offered through MamaBear.  These features are not a part of Net Nanny’s service. With MamaBear parents receive an alert when their child drives or rides over a preset speed limit that tells them how fast they were going and where they were when they exceeded the preset limit. You can also view the child’s location history and pattern for the day.

See Also: Monitor Teen Driving with the MamaBear Driving Monitor App

There are many wonderful apps and protection services that offer a variety of useful features to fill different needs for families. Some apps, like Net Nanny, are designed to focus on web browsing behavior on both desktop computers and mobile devices; others, like MamaBear, track children’s behavior both on social media and in real life situations. It’s helpful to know what the options are so parents can choose a service to help them keep their families safe while allowing freedom without worry.