Parental Controls – Ensure Your Kids Don’t Make The Same Mistake Once
No matter how old your children are, they are familiar in the ways of the 21st century. Almost by second nature they are comfortable navigating their way around any type of electronic device.
We live in an age where high-tech devices are so common even our toddlers, pre-teens and teens can use them and even have their own. Parental controls are an essential part of the modern technology that allows children to safely explore an almost endless variety of knowledge and entertainment.
From keeping children away from inappropriate content to preventing them from making purchases, iOS and smartphone parental controls allow parents peace of mind when their children are playing with their phones. Read on to learn how to navigate parental controls for several different platforms and remain in control of your children’s electronic use.
Parental Controls on iOS
Apple allows parents to enable what they call “restrictions” on iOS through the settings menu. You can access restrictions through the general settings menu. Restrictions allow parents to control what their kids can and can’t access. Restrictions can be enabled at will and then disabled with a passcode, allowing for easy sharing of the iOS device.
Restrictions allow parents to
- block or allow specific apps,
- choose whether their kids can install or remove apps and
- allow or deny network access.
Parents can also choose to block iTunes movies, music, books and other content marked as offensive. Perhaps one of the most important features is to disable in-app purchases. In several notable cases, kids have spent thousands of dollars on in-game boosts without their parents’ knowledge.
Android Parental Controls
Android doesn’t have as thorough built-in parental controls as Apple products, but they still have helpful settings. One of the main parental settings applies only within the Google Play Store.
There is an option to filter available apps based on the maturity level (high, medium, low or everyone).
Some manufacturers offer parental controls in their customized versions of Android but this can vary drastically by device. Aside from this,
you’ll probably have to turn to a third-party app for more parental controls.
Unfortunately, there are still ways most of these can be bypassed. For younger children, however, they should provide enough basic filtering to keep them safe. One popular application is K9 Web Protection Browser. This app gives kids a separate browser to use that has built-in filtering.
Parental Controls: Doing it Right
Though not very popular, one of the platforms to do parental controls best is the Nook series of eReaders. The Nook allows each user to create a separate profile. Each profile can be classified as an adult or child, and access to certain inappropriate books, movies, and apps can be easily disabled for the child profiles.
The Nook lock screen allows users to switch profiles easily. Android 4.2 and later offers user profiles with similar restrictive features, but only on tablets. Hopefully soon Android will offer these features on phones. However, most of these features weren’t available on early smartphones, so we can already see huge progress towards making technology kid-friendly. This trend appears to be continuing, which is great for parents with young children.
Parental control for electronics might seem like a foreign concept, mostly because smartphones and tablets didn’t exist when we (the parents) were growing up.
However, we are living in an age where the internet is everywhere, and even if your children are angels, they need to be protected and shielded from all that the internet has to offer.
Not only is parental control helpful when protecting your kids from inappropriate images, language or material, but it also allows you to keep track of their electronic use, and be fully informed of how they are spending their time.
As a parent, it is your right to stay informed with your kid’s activities, interests, and behavior, and in a technology-friendly world, you might need to keep an extra eye on these things.
Parental control tools provide a seamless way to keep track of what your children are doing without being overbearing or creating problems. Information for this article was provided by the smartphone experts at Apple Shark who allow you to sell your iPhone back to them, even if the device is damaged.
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