TOP-7 recommendations for dosed use of a smartphone by a child

Why is child protection from devices necessary?

A child left alone with a smartphone by his guardian parent has every chance to get into trouble. There are lots of reasons for this: pedophiles who are on the watch for their victims in a virtual space where adults have no opportunity to monitor kids; content "18+"; sites with money rates and just scammers that are able to worm themselves into infants’ confidence and become a threat to the family safety.

Finally, the hours spent on games and entertainment sites become a serious problem if parents do not try to time control spent by the child on the Web. As a result, academic performance suffers, communication skills in the real world are violated, health is harmed, and instead of becoming a kid guard and assistant, the device turns into an enemy.

Usage time limits for a child phone

Pediatricians, psychologists, child safety experts firmly believe that family control, which is designed to limit screen time, is necessary for a child.

The following norms are generally accepted:

• Up to 2 years old – a few minutes a day;
• Up to 4 years old – no more than an hour;
• Up to 10 years old – one hour and a half;
• Up to 13-14 years old – 2 hours.

Adults who care about physical and psychological child security should keep these numbers in mind.

7 recommendations for dosed use of a smartphone by a child

Here are some recommendations that will not stop your children using the latest technology, but will help solve the emerging problem of smartphone addiction:

• Create "Zones without devices" in your home. Set something like a parental block to use your smartphone, for example, in the kitchen or dining room. And the restrictions should apply to everyone! You can’t monitor children, forcing them to give up their favorite toys and social networks, and in the meantime checking your email and reading the news. Learn to communicate with loved ones without gadgets.
• Set a schedule. Include in the child daily regime the periods when the child can use a smartphone, and the time at which the technique is banned. For example, you can put your phone away while doing homework or gardening.
• Look for an alternative. It will become easier to protect children from unwanted but familiar activities if you can keep them interested in something that is off the phone. Pick up a hobby together that your teenager will find interesting, or spend time together doing a common thing: cooking dinner, playing a board game, watching your favorite show. This will not only reduce the time spent on the smartphone, but will remind the child that he has close people, he is loved, his family protects him.
• Appeal to consciousness of your son or daughter. Alas, a child blocker, which would block their access to a smartphone, does not exist in the outside world. It is impossible to protect completely a child from modern technology, and it is not necessary. But you can talk to him and discuss acceptable limits, for example, app time limit with games to 40 minutes per day or watching YouTube videos for no more than half an hour.
• Add a game element. Once you have established the rules for child daily regime smartphone use, document them and arrange a solemn signing ceremony. You can come up with a reward system by rewarding a child with a desired trip to an amusement park or a concert for keeping promises.
• Give a personal example. If you yourself do not raise your head from the screen, it is ridiculous to hope that all of the above measures will work. Don't go to extremes. You can only take away a smartphone as a punishment for a serious offense, but not as a restrictive measure.
• Download the child monitoring application. If your child does not fit into the established framework, you will have to think about how to drastically limit the time that he spends on the smartphone. Fortunately, today's parents can do this effortlessly and cost-effectively by simply installing a monitoring app on their device. This is a simple, high-quality and effective way of family control, which will provide adults with the opportunity to control safely a child's phone.

What purpose do the apps for family monitoring serve?

Why the app? Physical impact on a teenager – constant checks, attempts to monitor the child, now and then pulling him up or taking away the phone – takes a lot of mental strength, leads to quarrels and does not contribute to strengthening a healthy atmosphere in the family. But you can control kids with the help of a smart program gently and unobtrusively, keeping the track of events of their lives, but not making them feel under constant pressure.

Parental Control Kroha is a great example of the app that allows you to monitor screen time of your child and set a parental lock if you wish. It will block certain websites when their usage limit is reached, but will not prevent you from making and receiving calls.

In addition, Parental Control serves as a kind of parent guide, as it allows you to get accurate data about how much time the child spent in the virtual world and what Internet resources he visited, giving prompts adults what should pay closer attention to. This is a real parental guide according to the interests and inclinations of a teenager! 

Benefits of kid monitoring application

The user control application allows you not only to set reasonable limits on the time of using the device, but also to carry out a lot of other actions to increase the child security when using a smartphone. 

Family monitoring will give you the opportunity to:

• Get information about the children location at any time. Moreover, even without your request, the gps parental tracker control will signal that the child has gone beyond the safe area you have marked.
• Put a child lock on unwanted sites and applications.
• Use the screen explorer to view a call history and contact list.
• Have an access to correspondence.
• See photos taken by your child or received photos from others on his smartphone.
• Be aware of all smartphone activities in a chronological order.
• Monitor battery level, free memory status and internet traffic.
• Install child filters, make blacklists and block completely the smartphone if necessary.

A separate plus of the application is that it is impossible to delete it by the child himself. Be sure that a naughty teenager will not bypass the settings to do something "illegal".

Naturally, each of us wants to use all available methods for family protection. However, remember that a trusting relationship with a child is more important than your peace of mind. Do not overdo it with intrusion into his privacy; do not overuse screen limits, locks and surveillance methods. Be as delicate as possible in your control, and then Parental Control will serve exclusively for the benefit of you and your loved ones.