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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/

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Dealing With Drop-Off Anxiety? There’s an app for that.

Does dropping your kids off at a friend’s house leave you anxious or nervous? Do you ever wonder if they are staying there or going somewhere else? If so, I know how you feel.  It’s a pretty normal reaction as our kids start taking further steps away from us and out into the world.  I imagine every parent deals with drop off anxiety at some point in their child’s life, probably more likely in the tween/teen years when they want to go to a friend’s house you may not know so well or to the movies or mall without you. With the MamaBear child tracker app; you can have a little peace of mind and maybe be a bit more willing to drop your child off.

The MamaBear app allows parents to monitor the child’s location in real-time, as well as receive alerts if the child leaves the drop-off location ahead of schedule. It’s security knowing they are where you expect them to be.

I want my kids to experience as much freedom as they can without me on their heels, but finding the balance of taming my anxiety and letting them roam can be a juggling act. And the distance grows as much as the worry as they get older going from roaming the neighborhood, to the mall or even a community fair. The MamaBear app has some other features too.  It also allows parents to give children some flexibility by sending alerts only when a child enters an area that a parent chooses as restricted. MamaBear further informs parents by alerting them if the child uses inappropriate language or adds friends on social media as well as monitor their driving speed.

We do our best to give our kids tools and advice to help get themselves out of uncomfortable situations. The MamaBear app allows parents to rest assured, knowing the child has a readily available and easy to use app to make contact. The child can check in with the parent, reach out for an immediate pickup or notify the parent of an emergency with a few simple clicks on a smartphone. The children’s interface is three simple buttons to make using the app quick and discreet for children.

It’s simple – we just want to keep our kids safe. I’m pretty sure it’s a major commonality among all parents. Some are just more anxious than others when our kids are exploring the world. The MamaBear child tracker app was specifically developed to allow parents to observe more of their child’s activities and, as a result, worry a little less.

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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.