Is your child old enough for a cell phone? Are you scared and wary too much? Don’t worry parents! Kids’ safety apps will take care of your teen’s smartphone usage.
The phone is a no more convenient tool to communicate; rather, it is a small-town square. It’s the place to socialize, it has an arcade, library, shopping apps, games, remote control and much more. Thus, kids feel left out if they do not own a smartphone (at the desired age).
Well, to protect your children from the perils of the internet, it is essential to set rules when they enter the whole new digital world.
So, we have come up with basic protocols for your kid’s first phone.
Rules For Child’s First Cell Phone
1. Rest the phone outside the kid’s bedroom:
Why is it important?
Sufficient and sound sleep is extremely important for children. Sleeping habits decide the quality of sleep. Kids often stay up until the wee hours if they have their phone handy. They check notifications, messages, chats or plays games online.
No wonder kids will exhaust and find it hard to concentrate at school. So, it would be better if children leave the device during bedtime.
How to enforce the rule?
With the screen time control app, you can set the bedtime where the running application will be closed during sleeping hours on the child’s phone, and they cannot access anything later.
However, everybody in the family should place their gizmos in a common room and should create a good example.
2. Not all online content is safe
Why is it important?
The Internet provides answers to almost all the pressing issues, say it be research, education, fun, entertainment, life, etc.
However, online content also includes dating, gambling, and violent apps, pornography material, drug information, and similar content. So, it is important to keep kids away from such unsuitable online material which otherwise will lead them towards the wrong path.
How to enforce the rule?
Using a kids safety apps, you can block the harmful applications and secure your teen’s from viewing inappropriate content. App blockers block questionable apps and disallow kids to view them.
Good parental control apps offer App Install Blocker to prevent children from installing unnecessary new applications.
3. Refuse your child to share picture messaging
Why is it important?
Visual communication is part of the modern generation. Nowadays, children snap photos of everything and are eager to post it. However, it is shown in one of the studies that 39% of teens sent sext messages with explicit images. Not only does this act leave them vulnerable to bullying, but it can also lead them to online grooming and other predatory behaviors.
How to enforce the rule?
Keep a check on your child’s social media accounts and be a part of it. Be aware of various applications that are popular among children and apps that share harmful things.
Apply parental controls to block kid’s device camera and make sure that applications whose sole function is picture messaging shouldn’t get downloaded.
4. Say ‘no’ to phones during the family time:
Why is it important?
You might have noticed your kids can’t put down their gadgets and cannot interact effectively during meals. If you want to spend quality time together, without interference from gaming, liking FB pics, or texting, let that time be device-free.
How to enforce the rule?
If your child says, ‘let me finish this level’ or ‘five more minutes, please’, warn them and ask to join for a meal asap.
Family time must be well defined. This rule needs to be followed by each family member. Postpone your calls and emails (unless it is urgent) while spending fruitful hours with kiddos.
Share and exchange good thoughts and teach dining etiquette to kids with fun. Listen to their school pranks and naughtiness they did during the day. Give them some learning puzzle to solve and check how promptly they resolve it.
5. Excessive screen time should not be entertained at any cost:
Why is it important?
Define time boundaries before giving a smartphone to your child. The online world explores your kids to associated risks of predators, bullies, molesters and many more.
Excessive screen time also triggers various problems that include, irritation, dry and redeyes, sedentary lifestyle cause obesity and lack of physical power and efficiency, anxiety, depression. And in the long run, it may cause loss of eyesight, brain/ear tumor, cancer and even trigger suicidal thoughts.
How to enforce the rule?
Child monitoring application serves best in curbing the prolonged media hours of kids. It allows you to schedule the curfew hours on multiple apps that a child use.
Even a few good kids’ safety software enables you to set a time frame to allow access to children for the specific minutes/hours during the whole day. You can place the restriction either on an individual app or making a group of similar applications (like social media).
6. Monitor the child’s cell phone activities:
Why is it important?
When a kid enters the digital life, they are unaware of cyber threats, negatives of internet, traps of criminals, questionable content and much more stuff. Web world lures the child’s attention, and they get engrossed in their phones.
While sitting with a device and exploring various resources online, kids do not realize the time and energy they spent on unnecessary topics. So, it is essential to monitor their online movements.
How to enforce the rule?
Phone monitoring application comes in rescue to monitor and control child’s online tasks. It enables parents to keep tabs on a child’s content, the time they spent on various apps, the place they visit, and much more.
You can save kids from the excessive habit of using phones, keep them safe on roads, select the apps they should use, reach them during emergencies, block their calls and even detect their lost device.
So, the above set of reasonable rules will surely help your kids to optimally use their first phone and practice digital decency from the beginning.
Conclusion
Install one of the best child monitoring applications like Bit Guardian Parental Control to ensure the absolute online safety of your children. Download the app today and experience its distinctive functionalities.