The use of the internet and digital devices has become rampant so much so that the children are using the internet via their digital devices more than most adults. With children accessing the internet on a range of devices, the responsibility of protecting them from online dangers has become the biggest challenge for parents.
In the past few years, we have witnessed a wide variety of spy apps and monitoring solutions being launched that allow us to see our children’s online activity and help us set some digital boundaries for them. However, you need to beware of those offering free spy app versions such as best free hidden spy apps for Android because they are mostly fake and do not provide any fruitful results.
Truth be told, no company can offer free monitoring or spy app solution and even if they do, they will either turn out bogus, lack important monitoring features or do not provide the required output. Therefore, you need to be careful while making the selection for a monitoring app.
For your ease, we have mentioned a few important steps that you need to consider while choosing a monitoring app for your children’s safety.
What Do Monitoring Apps Offer?
Several companies are now launching monitoring apps to help parents protect their children from dangers emanating in the digital world. Whether they are gaming consoles providing with parental controls based on PEGI ratings, routers offering apps to show you exactly what your child is doing online, or even the addons on a smartphone letting you track your child’s whereabouts, technology has never been so helpful to parents.
There are so many parental control apps and monitoring solutions that it has become hard to know where to begin from. Parents are not aware of what things they need to consider before opting for a monitoring app. They may have heard stories from other parents about monitoring apps but they have no idea how to select one and then how to make use of it.
The truth is, monitoring apps offer a wide range of surveillance features. Effective and reliable monitoring software will help you monitor your child’s entire online activity—you can keep tabs on their incoming and outgoing text messages, phone calls, emails, track their location, web browsing history, and what not.
Besides, you can also maintain their key logs and surround recordings. All of these monitoring features are offered by a good and reliable monitoring app.
Steps to Consider When Choosing Monitoring Apps
Below, we have expressed some steps (factors) to consider when choosing a monitoring app for your children. Let’s take a look at them:
Easy to Use
A good monitoring app should be easy to use and must have a user-friendly interface and dashboard. The app should not be complicated and must not take long hours of set up and installation. Even parents with zero technical know-how should be able to use them easily.
Control
You need to consider choosing the monitoring app that allows you to control and manage everything your child is doing with their device. A good monitoring should be able to help you specify limits for particular activities rather than entirely cutting off times on everything.
You should use monitoring apps that let you control your child’s device and apps available when you do not need internet data. This will prevent your child from downloading everything in the morning and then spending the rest of the day browsing offline.
Cost-effective
Cost is something that holds the utmost importance for most parents. Nobody would want to spend all the money on an expensive monitoring app. However, it does not necessarily mean parents should only use the cheaper ones. Rather, they need to spend money on cost-effective monitoring apps that work efficiently and help them monitor their child’s online activity without any trouble.
Numerous spy apps and monitoring solutions are available out there that also offer free versions. For example, a company claiming to offer a free android spy app. We would not recommend using the free spy app because they not only fail to provide effective results but also lack many important monitoring features.
Coverage
A good parental control or monitoring app needs to provide coverage for all the devices. It needs to offer support for all the leading platforms such as Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows. This way parents can set them up on different devices their kids are using to access the internet and control everything they are doing online.
For instance, your child might be using a smartphone as well as a gaming console to access the internet. By installing a multidevice monitoring app, you can monitor what your child has been doing on both the devices.
Besides considering the abovementioned steps, there is also something you need to pay attention to. You need to talk through all the options with your child so they can understand how you are going to use the monitoring app and how it is going to impact on their use.
Having your child’s nod about deploying the monitoring app on their device will ensure that they can use the internet safely and responsibly without feeling threatened by anything. Once you both have agreed together on how to use the app, you should also review the boundaries as they grow up to show that you trust them to make smart choices on the internet.
