Did you know more than 90% of 2-year-olds in the United States have an online presence? Yes, you heard it right, I am talking about 2-year-old kids. These days, parents are readily publishing photos and other information about their kids on social media. We, as parents, are guilty of this before our kids.
According to the Family Online Safety Institute, 55% of the parents allowed their children to have a social media account when they were under 13 years. I would confess that I allowed my twin daughters to be on the digital channels from a young age. Now, they are obsessed with music and they constantly use Snapchat.
The truth is that just like us, our kids are obsessed with technology and they are moving forward with it. With so many cyberbullying and social media crime stories, our concerns are growing. Being a single mom, raising twin daughters, I figured that it is not a bad thing to allow your child to be on social media, if you make them understand the pros and cons of the digital world. The tricky part about the raising kids is figuring out how to allow your child to explore the digital world by keeping them safe.
There is no one-size-fit for parenting but it is possible that what worked for me, would work for you too. While some of you may not agree with this but I believe Xnspy monitoring app for cell phone is a great way to know what our kids are up to. I decided to use one of the best monitoring apps for cellphone to stay connected with their online activities. I choose xnspy.com for this purpose. I was happy to find out that it lets you monitor text messages, calls, browsing history, social media conversations, location, and a lot more. It is available for both Android and iOS. I can remotely see what daughters are up to through the Xnspy control panel.
Features of Xnspy
Let me walk you through some of the features of this app that I found valuable:
- View all the call history and contacts
I can check the calls made and received from my office and even home. The app also lets me check the contacts. I now make sure my daughters are not talking to strangers.
- GPS location
Teens can be really unpredictable sometimes. They don’t always tell you where they were. With the GPS location feature, I stay updated about my daughters’ location. I can also track their entire location history with the app.
- View emails and online activities
I have a track of all the emails. Time after time, I monitor them just to be sure my twins are having safe communications. I can even check their browsing history.
- View the social media activities
Whether it is TWITTER, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Viber or other popular social media and instant messaging platforms, XNSPY lets me view their calls, text messages and media files shared. What can a better way to protect your children from bullies? I know what they share and how they represent themselves on these channels.
- Remotely control the phone
You can also remotely send commands to the target device. So, whenever you feel like your kid is doing something they shouldn’t be, just send a command.
If you are a working mom, I understand your pain. It is impossible to follow around your teen while keeping up with your work responsibilities. These monitoring apps for cellphone have really eased everything for parents.
I would suggest that you set some rules for yourself and your kids before using any such app. spying through cell phone can turn into an obsession so limit yourself and don’t go overboard with monitoring each and every move. Kids, especially teens, don’t like to be questioned for what they are doing. if you don’t like something they are doing, then talk to them. Don’t restrict them right away.
Top 3 Rules to Follow
I don’t solely rely on the monitoring apps for cellphone for raising my daughters. There are other rules that I follow too, like:
- Communicate
The best way of dealing with issues is to communicate. Simply restricting your kids from something is not a solution. You have to make them believe that they can trust you and you are there for them no matter what. That’s the only way they will speak up and communicate their problems with you.
- Educate
Educate your children about the dangers of cyberbullying, body shaming, sexting and other harms associated with technology. They need to know how to tackle the situation themselves and sniff the trouble before it hits them.
- Participate
Will you ever allow your child to be in a city all alone where you have never been? No, right? Letting your child use technology without knowing what it is all about and how your child will be using is kind of the same. Therefore, participate and learn to use technology before your kids. You can always ask them to teach you too.
I’m crazy busy and it’s just me, no kids, no husband, just little ole me and I have no idea how I keep up. It seems like raising kids and having a family is overwhelming, I need all the help possible, and Apps always tend to make my life a little easier. I’m passing this post along my Mommy friends
That sounds like a great app for parents!