Your Guide to Setting Up Parental Controls On Your Child’s Smartphone
Your Guide to Setting Up Parental Controls On Your Child’s Smartphone
As much as smartphones are a boon to mankind, they also pose a threat to human privacy. While present-day adults grew up in an era of landlines, telegrams and physical mails as means of communication, their kids are using smartphones and gadgets from a very tender age. At such a young age, it’s wrong to expect them to know about security and safety. This is where parents have to step in.
Thanks to the availability of parental controls on smartphones that you can worry less about your kids falling prey to certain ills of the technology. Be it Android or Apple, both operating systems come with these controls. Here’s how to go about setting parental controls on your kid’s smartphone:
1. Create a login pin or restricted profile
The first thing you can do to prevent your kid from directly accessing the smartphone is by creating a pin or a login pattern. This option is available in the “Setting” menu of both Android and Apple smartphones. You can even consider creating a restricted account on your child’s smartphone. You can password-protect this profile and allow your child to access only a select number of mobile applications.
2. Download a parental control app
The marketplace on Android and Apple smartphones have many parental control applications, which can help you keep your child safe from cyber threats. Take, for example, Spy Phone. This is a free mobile tracker that families can use to keep a check on their loved ones, especially young children. You can get it on Google Play and App Store.
3. Limit access to apps
You can prevent your child from being exposed to age-inappropriate content. For Android users, the Google Family Link mobile app works great because it allows you to block certain built-in apps, such as Gmail, Photos, and Play Music, from being accessed by your child. There’s a Screen Time setting on Apple smartphones that allows you to select and add App Limits. You can place parental controls on entertainment, games and social networking site through this feature.
4. Protect personal information
On Android phones, you can use Family Link to prevent your kid from sharing personal photos with others. You can also limit the ability of Google to save data related to your kid’s voice commands, online searches, and many other activities. For Apple users, there’s an option on the Content & Privacy Restrictions under Screen Time settings that lets you prevent your child from accessing photos, the microphone, Bluetooth and other features that can possibly cause data leakage.
The above are just a few of the many ways in which you can set up parental control on your child’s smartphone. Make sure your child uses the device for purposes that are of utmost necessity.