Parents should install apps on their children’s gadgets to monitor what they are watching, posting and how much is their screen time. They can make sure access to certain sites are restricted, and they are strict with how much time the child is spending on the phone. Best is to have time dedicated everyday when they can access the gadgets like one has food timings or playground or school time. Same way the child needs to adhere to screen time for their own betterment.
Recently, the world saw how male students of Delhi-NCR schools talk in group chats. The ‘Bois locker room‘ incident brought to light how sexist, misogynist is the recent generation. The school children were found objectifying and threatening fellow female students in an online chat group. Where are the parents one can ask? There has to be some kind of parental control on this behavior.
The tech savvy teenagers need to be given freedom slowly so that they transform into better humans in the future. There are parental control apps available for iOS and Android like the Google’s Family Link app consisting of two parts – one for parents and one for children. There are other apps like Free Phone Spy, Net Nanny, Nischint and eKavach, available on the Google Play store or Apple’s App Store.
Parents can keep a check on the screen time, app usage, location of the children. These apps sends them reports of the activity and one can track live location of the child, block certain apps/websites and sets a routine for the child. Parents can also read messages of the child using spyware.
The best solution to avoid children learning wrong things is to build trust so that they share things with the parents and not hide anything. Building character cannot be done by technology that is a parent’s job which technology can enable by setting restrictions but cannot solve. Parents can try giving children access to age appropriate apps step by step. For example, Facebook has Messenger for Kids, allowing safe messaging and video chats with only approved contacts. Parents can monitor and set rules using the app.
