In the digital age, it has become far harder to track who our kid talks and interacts with. This is often a very troubling thought for parents. They want to know about their children’s lives and ensure they are kept safe. Usually, this safety is supplemented with various intrusive software when a child is given a phone. However, you shouldn’t track their phone. Here are some common reasons why parents track children’s phones and the alternatives to them.
Concerns over their online interactions
Parent’s worry, it’s in their nature. With the constant fearmongering over online communication and occasional horror story coming from it all, it makes sense that they’d want to keep an eye out. The most common thing parents will monitor is contacts. Knowing who kids are interacting with and what they say to others is a decently frequent thing for most parents.
While understandable, it can still be quite intrusive. Sometimes, kids will confide in their closest friends on things that are important to them. While it’s understandable that you expect them to be open with you on the matter, it can sometimes take time. Having them incapable of expressing their emotions to their friends online means some issues in their life may persist. The child doesn’t feel ready to talk to you about it and cannot talk to their friends about it online out of fear you’ll find out.
Instead of trying to have a full scope of their online interactions, consider having kids openly talk to us about new people they meet in online chatrooms. Additionally, warn them about any behaviors you feel are worrisome online. If you wish your kid to be open about their use of the internet, it’s usually best to simply communicate with them.
Concerns over applications they use
The joy of phones and the internet is the unlimited access to so many different things. From software to information, everything is at our fingertips. That’s where parents may feel they should step in as moderators.
The assumption is that a child could cause issues to the device with accidentally downloaded malware or downloading something inappropriate for their age. However, there are better ways to go about this than invading their privacy. The simplest one being content locks. These may also infringe on our kid’s overall use of the phone but they are a good start.
Content locks, parental controls, or whatever the item you are applying these to calls them are special filters that allow the use of approved applications that are deemed child friendly. This goes for various software as well. They are usually very easy to turn on and decent at keeping our kids from the content inappropriate for them. However, there may be cases where something borders between kid friendly and not. Usually, when this content is present on sites or app stores, it will be filtered.
This can include educational content that may be more serious in nature or applications that have certain themes that may not be harmful to our child but affect the rating nonetheless. Encourage your kid to tell you about things they want to install even if the current filter blocks them. Review the application or content yourself and decide whether it’s acceptable for your child or not. By doing so, you’ll be better acquainted with the content that interests them while also being able to steer their engagement with those interests into more appropriate waters.
The concern is best placed in the hands of our kids, who can be educated on what’s fine and what isn’t by engaging with the information present with our aid. Of course, we can use the same tracking software to aid our kid in responsibly using their phone at times. For this concern, spyphone.com can come in handy, it is a spy phone app which can allow our child to notify us directly if something suspicious goes on by using the panic button feature.
Worry about scams and malware
Kids are often quite a bit more gullible than ourselves. The simple gestures and threats work on them due to a lack of experience with scams. This is why parents may look into possible restrictions on incoming mail or other forms of software. The idea behind it is simple if scammers cannot engage our kids they will be kept safe.
However, there are multiple ways in which scammers can get around this. Often using software aimed at our kids or indirect means of scamming them. Sure, it does cut down the risk heavily, but it doesn’t eliminate it.
The best way to mitigate all the harmful engagements online and secure our kid’s safety is to teach them about scams. Scammers are ever present throughout our life, so it’s good to teach them what a scam looks like.
Malware isn’t much different, and we should encourage our kids to research the reception and reviews of each thing they install. Their interactions with these materials can teach them how to engage other media or thwart other harmful phishing attempts later.
Overall engagement with the virtual side of our life is something that’s increasing daily. This increase also spikes the incidents related to hacking and scamming attempts. Teaching our kids these lessons early will stick with them throughout their life. While some level of filtering may still take place, for the sake of your data’s safety, do let your child take apart and avoid scams through your advice rather than inbuilt software.
Conclusion
Our kids may be gullible but they aren’t stupid. They are capable of learning and developing healthy online habits. While every parent should know their child best and understand how much autonomy should be given in this learning process, they should also understand it’s their job to educate their kids on dangers lurking online. Alternatively, engaging them with content that brings the subject over succinctly yet properly works well too.
Software and hardware limitations can come in handy, but they shouldn’t be relied on. Additionally, they should be installed with child’s consent. If our children feel as if they can trust us, they will be more likely to share any uncomfortable situations they find themselves in both online and offline. Being nosey without their approval could lead to kids feeling distrustful of us. Every person requires privacy no matter their age.
Overall, it’s all about engaging them as a parent and as a teacher. It takes dedication, but the lessons learned this way will keep them safe forever. Tracking apps could still help with preventing phone loss and reinforcing the lessons we have with them but should be kept as an extra option they choose rather than our decision.