Social media is a dangerous place for young children. It is given that the number of malicious people and content has also increased with the expanding use of social media. It also became very easy for hackers and predators to hide behind the Internet’s anonymity. Due to this, children face substantial danger while using social media. Educating young users about the problems they can face while accessing social media platforms has become more important than ever.
ExpressVPN reveals that parents of young children are very much distressed about online threats, with 59% believing cyberbullying is the biggest issue, along with their kid being groomed by an online predator.
What Are Parental Controls?
One of the most common ways parents protect their children is by setting up parental controls on all devices. There have been many discussions regarding the effectiveness of Parental controls. However, blocking age-restricted content and installing VPN services with parental controls can protect children from the dangers of social media. Even though these methods might not seem very effective, it allows parents to monitor their children’s online activity without breaching their privacy.
Threats Children Could Face Online!
Young children can face multiple threats online. One of the most prevalent dangers for children online is cyberbullying. Children can also face catfishing, malware attacks, grooming, and internet trolling. Even though these activities can also happen to adults, younger users are more prone to get affected by such problems. This can not only affect them psychologically but can also force them to isolate themselves from day-to-day interactions.
It is advised that parents make their children aware of the problems they can face online. Children should know they are not safe online and avoid interactions with people they don’t know. Encouraging young children to interact freely can also ensure they will communicate with their parents about suspicious activities. Despite these precautions, setting up restrictions on social media and monitoring your children’s online activity can be beneficial in many ways.
Why Are Parental Controls Useful?
Parental controls primarily allow parents certain abilities that can help them restrict inappropriate content online. Even though kid-friendly filters are available on various search engines and social media websites, they are not entirely effective. So it becomes essential for parents to take further measures to ensure their child is safe while browsing the internet.
Almost all social media websites have parental control features so that parents can effectively monitor their children’s online activity. This not only enables parents to see which website their child uses the most, but they can also find any new people they have been interacting with. It can not be denied that such measures are required to safeguard children.
Benefits Of Parental Controls!
There are multiple reasons why Parental Control apps are required these days. Even though some various websites and applications allow parents to monitor content for their children, they are not always effective. Mentioned below are some of the benefits of using parental controls on all your devices.
- Parental controls can reduce the possibility of cyberbullying. Parents can block certain words and content for their children, which will block any messages that can be offensive or derogatory to them.
- Parents can also block explicit content and websites that might be inappropriate for young users. This will ensure that children are accessing a kid-friendly version of the websites.
- Parental Controls not only monitor social media activity for younger children and increase privacy for your device. Using parental controls software can help you improve the security settings for your device.
- Increasing screen time is also an issue for young children. So parental controls allow parents to monitor their child’s screen time. This enables them to see how much time their child spends on the Internet.
- Having parental controls enabled on your devices also reduces the stress for parents.
How To Maintain Child Privacy
Now that we know the benefits of parental controls, we must also acknowledge that prenatal controls can also breach children’s privacy. Parents must ensure that they do not snoop through their child’s conversation. Such activities can result in mistrust among children, and they will feel more inclined to hide things from you. Additionally, such incidents can potentially isolate your child from you, which can also be dangerous for them.
Parents must be vocal with their children about why parental controls are in place and how much they can monitor their activity. This will help your child better understand the need for such measures and how they will not breach their social media privacy. Open communication with young children is also important so they can understand the need for preventive measures while using social media.
Conclusion
Parental controls are quite mandatory in today’s time so that younger users can safely access the Internet. Even though young children must be educated about the problems they face, parents cannot provide unrestricted access to their children. Setting up measures that can help parents have better control over the content that their child sees online is useful. Using parental controls has multiple benefits as long as parents do not breach their child’s privacy.
Do you know which app assists in the parental control? Well, I want to stop my kids from watching toxic content on social platforms
There are lots of different ones which will do the job. We used to use Qustodio but you can use ones that are attached to your home Broadband, phones etc which are very good too.