Parenting is not easy, especially in today’s internet-driven world. Today, children are more exposed and evolved. Young kids can navigate a Smartphone in ways that could surprise you, with more owning a mobile device as early as 6-8 years. The advancements are amazing since you can foster a healthy learning and entertainment environment with the devices.
Technology also poses parenting challenges. For instance, should you monitor your child’s online activity? Wouldn’t that be an invasion of privacy? Such internal conflict can get the better of you, but there are many valid reasons to track the activities. The best part is that you can use a free phone monitoring app for parents, meaning that your child doesn’t have to know you are tracking their activities. Among the reasons emphasizing the need to track children’s online activities includes:
Exposure
The internet is loaded with all sorts of content, some inappropriate for your child. Tracking their activities helps parents block such exposure. You’ll ensure that your child doesn’t interact with the content they aren’t ready for, such as games featuring gore and vulgar language, explore sites with pornographic materials, to mention a few. Filtering and blocking content helps preserve your child’s innocence, making it easier to shape them to be morally responsible individuals.
Bullying
Most modern children interact online more than in person. This creates an environment for all sorts of engagements, bullying included. Cyberbullying is destructive, and tracking your child’s online activity can help you know if they are being bullied or even are the bullies. Bullying holds significant emotional impacts, and helping your child get through the tough times is critical. If they are doing the bullying, you can help them see the dangers and shape them into responsible individuals.
Security
Security breaches don’t just threaten your child. They can cause untold chaos to your whole family. Online predators are always on the lookout for vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, your child is a great candidate. Your child can over-share, including providing sensitive information that can be used to attack you. Stranger danger extends to the online world. By tracking your children’s online activities, you can moderate how they engage with others. You can ensure they are not sharing information that exposes you to attacks. Moreover, you can block access to apps and websites that are likely to infect their devices with malware and viruses, keeping your family safer.
Bad habits
Keeping your child away from potential bad friends is essential. Some online friends can influence your child to try bad things like drugs or shoplifting. Sexting can also send them down a bad road, especially in teens. Sharing those explicit photos and videos could haunt them. For instance, their friends can leak the content or use it for blackmail. Tracking a child’s online activities and steering them away from such individuals helps you avoid such instances. You’ll help the children maintain a good reputation, which helps them beyond childhood.
Moderate use
Addiction is a significant condition you should try to keep at bay. As you consider how to monitor your child’s social media, you’ll find apps that do more than tracking. The best apps help you schedule screen time. This helps moderate device use, ensuring they don’t get addicted to them that they can hardly focus in school, do homework, or manage in-person social interactions.
Peace of mind
Online monitoring for parents helps you know where your child is without calling or texting them. With location trackers, even including some measures such as geofencing that sends you alerts when your child goes out of the set perimeter, you can know where your child is, providing much-needed peace of mind.
There is no foul-proof parenting approach. While you might initially not be comfortable tracking your children’s online activities, the many benefits outweigh the concerns you might have.
