They say the early infant years are the toughest. But, I say that parenting gets a lot tougher as your child grows due to the additional, significantly diversifying parenting responsibilities. You then don’t only have to look after their food and clothing, but also the kind of things they get exposed to. The highly stimulating environments, with screens, social media, and the internet, don’t make for a great place for our children to grow up. However, you can’t make everything go away for them or could you? But if you think you can, remember that you still can’t keep them away from everything you deem harmful. Present-day parenting calls for innovation; it calls for eclecticism, freedom, and openness towards your children. You have to loosen up the leash sooner or later but, you have to make sure that the leash is there. Children should know that their parents will never stop watching over them. And you would want them to believe in this because you want to make sure they stay safe, forever! Children are growing up in a proliferating digital experience. That’s why it’s essential to teach them the rigorous concepts of safely treading the digital world.
Why should you monitor your kids’ phone?
Phone monitoring means establishing clear and stable rules and parameters for your kids to keep track of their digital footprints. As a mother, you must know what is going on in your child’s social world. For this very reason, you have a right to monitor their social interactions and online activities.
There are many reasons as to why you should monitor your child’s devices. Yet, the most significant one is to keep them from any harm. Once kids get their first phone, parents commonly become anxious and fretful for the things their kids may get into. From cyberbullying to suicidal ideation, there are countless ways for kids to get involved in dangerous situations. As a parent, you are playing the role of the channel between your child and the outside world.
The abundance of technology has given birth to numerous digital concerns for parents including cyberbullying, depression, suicidal ideation, adult content, online predators, sexting, and threats of violence.
Anxiety and depression is a fact of life for many teens. According to PEW research center, 7 out of 10 American teens reported that depression is a serious issue among their peers. 12.8% of youth ages 12 to 17 have faced serious depressive episodes in their life. Bullying and inferiority complex are among the major reasons behind the increasing trend of depression among teens and preteens. As a parent, you can help your child to cope with depression and anxiety only if you realize your child’s condition timely.
Social media and internet forums have given birth to crimes like cyberbullying and online predators. There is a steady growth in cyberbullying. The research shows that 34% of teens have reported being the victims of some sort of cyberbullying. According to a research study, chat rooms, social media sites, and multiplayer gaming platforms are the most common channels to interact with online predators. In 64% of the cases, the offenders interacted online with the kids. The research added that in most interactions with an online predator, kids are involved in illegal drugs, child pornography, sexual assaults, and child abductions. You can save your children if you have open discussion sessions with them and monitoring their activities can help you to take preventive actions beforehand.
Self-harm or suicide is another rising concern that asks for your immediate attention to the online activities of your child. Reports show that 35% of teens were involved in suicidal situations. Warning signs of suicidal ideation are mostly hidden within kids’ phones as they send text messages to their friends or post to social media sites. Many times, parents have no clue what their kids are up to. The rising trend of sexting is another major reason you need to read all the messages that have been sent/received on your child’s phone. The research shows that nearly 40% of teen boys and girls have sent sexually-suggestive messages, however, 61% of all the sexters who have sent nude pictures confess that they were pressurized to do it.
How can you monitor your kids’ phone?
Some parents simply take their child’s phone and begin scrolling through it. Do you really think it is an easy and effective approach? Kids know how not to leave any digital footprints on their phones for others. They even know how to hide or delete things. So, scrolling through their phone isn’t helpful in any case.
There has to be a better way. Fortunately, there are many parental control monitoring apps available in the market that can help in accessing data stored on the phone and setting restrictions on online activities. But how do you get to know what your children are doing online? And how do you do it in an effective way that assists in building trust with your kid and also encouraging open communication?
One way to look over your child’s digital activity is to use a mobile monitoring app called Xnspy, that comes with remote access to your child’s phone. Xnspy is a non-intrusive mobile monitoring app that enables you to monitor the activities of your child and works with both Android and iOS devices. With Xnspy, you could:
− Access phone calls (dialed, missed, and received)
− Read text messages (sent/received)
− View multimedia files (Photos and videos)
− Access instant messenger chats (WhatsApp, Viber, Skype, and etc.)
− Track GPS location
− View and block installed apps
− Monitor web browsing, bookmarks, and emails
− Record calls and surroundings
− Remote Access
− 24/7 instant alerts
Xnspy gives you access to your child’s phone without letting them know. After a subscription, all the information is fetched from the phone you want to monitor. You can access this data through a user-friendly, web-based control panel. You can view photos and videos that are stored on your child’s phone. If you find anything inappropriate, you can encourage a healthy open discussion about it.
You can read text messages and view call logs. In case you find any number doubtful, you could add that to Xnspy’s Watchlist which provides you instant notifications whenever your child communicates with that contact number. Additionally, you can define specific words you want to watch over. This app sends you an instant alert whenever those words are used in chats or emails. Xnspy also lets you read emails and view their browsing history. With this monitoring app, you can also read chats made on social media platforms like WhatsApp, Viber, Skype, Line, and many more. Reading their chats help you in analyzing if your kids are involved in any bad situations like cyberbullying, depression, or sexting. You access this information and develop a secure environment for your child. Again, open discussion about cybercrimes and their implications can ensure their better digital safety.
With Xnspy, you can monitor their whereabouts. You can track their real-time location and also view the location history. You can define places and develop geofences for your kid. Whenever your kid tries to pass that fence, Xnspy will notify you. You can also get a graphical report containing the top 5 frequent callers, the top 5 call durations, and the top 10 frequently-visited websites, and a weekly punch card showing all the calls along with their durations. You can access all this information in a stealth mode so you could step in to intervene when it is right.
Media and digital devices have become an integral part of our world. A phone is the most common tech companion a child carries around. As a parent, you have a right to monitor your kids’ phone to save them from rising digital threats like cyberbullying, online predators, child pornography, sexting, and many others. Xnspy is an all-in-one mobile monitoring app that lets you access all the data stored on your kid’s phone, including calls, chats, photos, contacts, and lots more. If you find anything suspicious, you can discuss that with your kid before they might get themselves into serious trouble.
Hey there, Martha here, a full-time mom of two, currently trying to bring a small impact in everyone’s life whom I can reach through The Queen Momma. I usually write on topics related to parenting, pregnancy and motherhood. Having gone through a few rocky relationships myself, I consider myself somewhat of an “expert” on topics related to dating and relationships.
I formerly worked at Special Needs Network Inc and BrightStar Care of Beverly Hills as a head manager. I have a passion for assisting organizations and individuals in achieving their objectives and have had the opportunity to do so throughout my professional career. At present, writing for The Queen Momma is a great addition to my professional career.
Parents are easily paranoid. They’ll go to extreme lengths to control their children. Installing an app on their phone to monitor their activities adds to the hysteria. If you want to know what is going on in your kid’s life, talk to them. Don’t hand them a phone if you’re concerned about their safety.
What you’re saying may be true but installing a parental monitoring app on my son’s phone was necessary. I think it depends on WHY you use a parental monitoring app. My son was depressed and anxious, didn’t like going out or doing any normal stuff kids his age do. With the app, I instantly knew what was wrong with him. He was being cyber bullied and not telling anyone. It took a lot of counselling afterwards, but I believe it was an app that saved my son from depression.