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Should You Use a Parental Control App on your Child’s Iphone?

parental control iphone

Do you really need a parental control app?

We all do our best as parents and I believe we all try to encourage trust with our children among the people in our community and direct networks. The good news is, most of us probably can. Even though we trust our children to make the right choices, and in much fewer cases do we trust the people around our children, the use of technology can help ensure our children’s safety. A little extra knowledge can be useful!
Parental control apps on the IPhone offer parents a chance to gain insights and offer a road to more communication. Monitoring apps also give children a new, and sometimes easier, way to communicate with us than existing methods. Parenting apps like MamaBear can offer options and reassurances.

The biggest hurdle most parents overcome when installing a parental control or monitoring app on their child’s phone is acceptance. Parenting apps offer much more than just monitoring and control options, and with a little explaining about the safety features, our kids understand this. GPS tracking for emergencies is becoming more and more common, and several parenting apps offer families an emergency call button. Apps like MamaBear with variable alert settings and options allow parents as much or as little monitoring as they want. When the kids are in an emergency, need to quickly check in or discreetly ask for you to pick them up, they’ll begin to understand why you installed the MamaBear app.

When children first join social media networks like Facebook and Instagram, a parental control app with social media monitoring features like MamaBear can be invaluable. Social media, combined with a smartphone, gives children connectivity to the world that most of us parents never imaged. A tool like the MamaBear app gives you an eye into their behaviors as they take their first steps on social media.

Parental control apps and monitoring apps can also be helpful when a child learns to drive. We all know we have to trust our kids with the keys at some point, but sometimes we need a little extra reassurance. With such a big, new responsibility like driving, most children understand that parents simply want to know they’re safe and the use of apps like MamaBear can do just that! Monitoring a child’s driving speed and where they’re traveling in the car is a standard use of parental control apps.

There are plenty of reasons to monitor and install parental control apps. Major changes and additions to the life of a child, (like giving them a new phone, joining a social site or driving) can be a great time to introduce MamaBear, both to give parents some insight and reassurance. When a child first joins Facebook or Instagram, or learns how to drive, extra monitoring is only natural and should be easily acceptable by the child given the stories we read. Using the latest technology, like MamaBear, for monitoring just makes sense.

The MamaBear child tracker app is available free during beta-stage on Iphone and Android.

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Looking for an App to Help With Tracking Kids? Here Are a Few Options!

track kids app

Global positioning satellite (GPS) technology is making smartphone based monitoring an exciting new option for many parents. There are dozens of apps and options that can be used for parents to track kids. With the explosion of smartphone usage, multiple tracking and parenting apps are being released frequently. Here are a few apps for tracking kids, and some information on each of them.

MamaBear Child Tracking:

Pros: MamaBear was developed as an all in one solution to child tracking and monitoring. MamaBear offers GPS tracking and numerous options for location based alerts, including when a child enters specified restricted areas, or leaves designated areas early. MamaBear also monitors driving speed and taps into social media, offering parents even more information. It’s also cross-platform so a child can be on an Android device and a parent on a iOS device or vice versa.

Cons: MamaBear is relatively new and still in the public beta testing. Users may experience occasional bugs. However, with every new update, which is rather frequently, the MamaBear team is working to correct all known issues with the app on Android and iPhone devices. Because the MamaBear app is in beta testing, it is free to download and use. This makes it a favorite for many parents. We will continue improving and updating the functionality of the app, making it the #1 choice for parents who want to worry less about their children!

 

Amber Alert GPS:

Pros: Amber Alert was one of the first child tracking GPS services available to parents. The original Amber Alert locator used a GPS fob to communicate to a parent’s phone.

Cons: Amber Alert has released only offers parents basic location tracking services. In addition, when using the GPS fob, the child can easily lose the fob.

 

Footprints:

Pros: Footprints uses a wide range of iPhone functionality and includes specific location alerts. Footprints can alert a parent when a child leaves a designated location, or when a child goes on the move. It can also save a record of locations to give a parent an overall view of a child’s movements for the day.

Cons: Footprints is only available on iOS and requires a yearly subscription fee.

 

GPS Tracking Pro:

Pros: GPS Tracking Pro does an effective job of phone tracking via GPS. Parents can track a child via a web site and can use the site to find a lost or stolen phone.

Cons: GPS Tracking Pro is only available for Android phones and only offers basic GPS location services.

 

NQ Family Guardian:

Pros: NQ Family Guardian is an Android app that is still in the testing stages. NQ Family Guardian tracks the child’s location, online activities and offers several device filters and controls. Currently NQ Family guardian is free for 30 days and then requires a subscription fee.

Cons: It is only available for Android phones, and user reviews suggest it does not work on the newest model Samsung phones running Android Jellybean.

 

SecuraPhone:

Pros: SecuraPhone claims to use real time GPS monitoring and tracking to issue alerts on location and speed. A unique feature on the Android version of SecuraPhone prevents children from texting while driving.

Cons: At almost $10.00 monthly, SecuraPhone is not cheap, and many of the options are more suited to business monitoring than children.

 

If you are looking for an app to help track your kids, the apps listed above should meet your needs.

The MamaBear child tracker app is available free on Android and Iphone devices.

Download the app at the links below:

MamaBear child tracker app for Android

MamaBear child tracker app for Iphone

 

New GPS technology is making smartphone based monitoring an exciting new option for parents. There are dozens of apps that can be used to track kids. Here are a few.
Track Kids Apps
Date Published: 02/04/2013
4.5 / 5 stars
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The Best Apps for Parents in 2013

apps for parents

The start of 2013 offers a wealth of apps for parents to help with day to day life. There are so many apps available for Android and iOS devices that just searching for the best in each category can be very time consuming for a busy parent. Here are a few apps that our MamaBear team have found can make parenting just a little bit easier. These should help with managing life around the kids, as well as monitoring and managing the kids themselves.

Best Note App for Parents

Parents on the go need a good note app just to keep track of day-to-day life. A note app needs to be fast and flexible, especially for parents with multiple children. Evernote works across multiple devices and allows parents to save audio, visual and text based notes and is extremely easy to use.

Best Grocery and List App for Parents

Specific lists may call for more than just a note app. Grocery list apps like OurGroceries can help parents save time from checking grocery stocks. It can synchronize multiple phones to let a family share a list.

For the lists that children hate the most, the ones with their chores, iRewardChart gives parents an easy way to offer incentives.

Best Activities App for Parents

In the same vein as chore apps, apps that make it easy for parents to promote schools and safe extracurricular activities are often very helpful. Overdrive lets kids tap into the local public and educational libraries.  TeamSnap helps parents schedule team and group events easily while making contact with the team and team parents easier.

Best Parental Restrictions App

Setting up parental restrictions for particular device features and age appropriate content is important. For restricting phone access for children using Android phones, we recommend Kids Place.  Kids Place allows the parent to choose what apps and features the child can access on the phone while disabling the rest of the phone’s functionality. This gives parents the flexibility to allow children to try different apps and options and ensures that other apps stay put. Kids place also works on a parents’ phone to allow smaller children to play games, but not accidentally dial or text out.

On an iPhone, go to settings, general and enable parental restrictions for the device features you prefer.

Best All-in-One Parenting App

We don’t mean to toot our own horn, but when it comes to child monitoring apps for parents, MamaBear is your best option. MamaBear offers child location tracking via GPS and alerts, driving alerts, and social media monitoring in one easy to understand interface. In 2013, we’re working on adding even more functionality and looking forward to GPS upgrades in many new Android phones and iPhones.

There are lots of apps to make parenting easier, some of them easier than others. These apps are all available on Android or iOS, just like MamaBear parenting app. Many of them work across multiple platforms and devices, making multi phone households more manageable.

Using these apps for parents should make 2013 a little easier with our biggest reward being happy, safe children.

 

The start of 2013 offers a wealth of apps for parents to help with day to day life. We review the top apps available for Android and iOS devices
Mobile Apps
Date Published: 01/24/2013
4 / 5 stars
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The Smart Phone Gift Giving Guide for Your Kids

android and iphones for kids

The holidays are coming.  For many families, that means new cellphones and smart phones for the kids. When choosing the best cell phones for kids, there are several qualifiers that parents can look to before making a final decision. Price and functionality tend to be the most important considerations. Finding a balance of the first two options and a phone that meets the requirements the parents and child have in mind is usually going to result in the best cell phones for kids.

Affordability is a pretty important factor in choosing the phone for a child. Finding a phone that won’t break the family’s gift budget is important. Finding a budgeted phone that works effectively and has all the features the parents feel the child needs is also important. Typically one or two year old models fall neatly into a low or median price range while still offering full functionality, making them solid choices. Phones from providers who offer a family plan for calls and information are good choices for affordability as well.

Functionality is an issue with many modern phones. Call reliability is extremely important to parents who expect to use the phone to talk to the child regularly. A phone that is going to be used as information or learning tool will need a strong network card to ensure uninterrupted data.  Strong text functionality is typically important to modern kids and parents who use texts to communicate. Reasonably modern phones offer all of this functionality while avoiding the cost of brand new models. This makes slightly older but still modern phones some of the best cell phones for kids.

Many parents find that ensuring the child has a phone with a strong GPS system is the most important factor in functionality in a new phone. This typically means a more modern phone with a functional GPS tracker is ideal. Apps like MamaBear use this modern GPS functionality to track and monitor children, not just lost and stolen phones. Modern GPS is available in many phones, both brand new from lines within a few years old. The Samsung Galaxy SII and the IPhone 4s for example are not new to market but offer full modern GPS functionality.

Another important part of functionality for a child’s phone is parental control. Restricting the ability of the child to surf the web or watch videos is important to many parents. Preventing the child from deleting or modifying controls or parenting related apps is important. In this regard newer models of iPhone do tend of offer better functionality.

The best cellphones for kids fall squarely into a few areas. Affordability, both in terms of purchase and monthly costs, is an important consideration for parents. The phone doing what it is intended for is important for both parents and children. Functionality in certain areas, like GPS and parental restriction, is typically very important to parents. Recently produced, but not brand new, models tend to meet all of these criteria effectively. When loaded with a child monitoring app like MamaBear, they can also help a parent quietly observe more and worry less.