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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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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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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.

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Monitor Cyber Bullying on Social Media with the MamaBear Worry-Free Parenting App

When a parent is thinking of providing online safety to their children, bullying comes readily to mind. Bullying is a major behavioral problem most parents want to curb as soon as it occurs, but it can sometimes be difficult to identify. Social media based cyber bullying is easier for parents to keep tabs on than physical bullying, but can still take hours of social media monitoring to catch. The MamaBear app gives parents an alternative to hours of digging through social media. It allows parents to monitor a child’s social media language or bullying behaviors in real time.

Children can be tempted to get profane online when sitting behind a computer or phone. Casual profanity, even with friends and peers in social media, can be an indicator that a child is starting to engage in bullying. MamaBear updates parents when the child uses words the parent enters as restricted on both Facebook and Instagram. This allows parents a real-time, real world answer to a child’s social media hijinks. The MamaBear child monitoring app offers parental updates for specific words. Parents can assemble a list of unacceptable profane or hate language and MamaBear will offer alerts each time those words are used.

Regular name calling and casual bullying of friends and peers are surefire signs a child is probably taking bullying behavior too far in other instances. This type of behavior can start, and spiral out of control, on social media. Social media removes tone, body language and other physical communication indicators that can turn what may be meant as a joke, light-hearted or funny to one person to being received as intolerant and insensitive by another. Social media can provide a nearly anonymous facade that a child can use to say all manner of unfortunate things to others online. Monitoring a child for insulting or derogatory terms and expressions is not the only way to improve online safety for children. The MamaBear child monitoring app gives parents an efficient and simple way to monitor these behaviors on social media with a relevant scenario to start an appropriate conversation about respect and unintentional bullying with their child. It’s a tool to help stop the behavior early. It can also be a tool for awareness if your child is a victim of bullying. Having the proper knowledge can help spark a conversation about how to work as a team to put an end to it. MamaBear can also issue alerts for both single words and terms like “I’m sorry” and “leave me alone” so that parents can get alerts when a child is being bullied. And don’t forget the whole other language of acronyms being used.

Children left unattended online risk both being bullied and becoming bullies themselves. It is important to talk to your children about their personal digital footprint they are creating now and the lingering effects of their social media actions when it comes time to be accepted in a college or even when getting a job. They are creating a reputation and persona for themselves that can be permanently recorded.
Social safety for children is important for parents and bullying behaviors run rampant online. MamaBear gives parents a way to monitor a child’s social media account without personally observing it for hours every day. Parents can spend far less time worrying about Facebook and Instagram.

For a parenting resource about bullying – see Carrie Goldman’s site and book, Bullied.

If your child is a victim of cyber bullying, there are many great online resources where you can reach out for help.

http://www.stopcyberbullying.org/
http://www.cyberbullying.us/
http://www.stopbullying.gov/