Technological progress has led even the little ones to spend a lot of time (perhaps too much "> We activate the Parental Control active item, choose a secure and undetectable 4-digit PIN and configure the various categories of the store, starting from the Apps and games section: make sure that the PEGI filter is active based on the age of our child (from 3 up to 16 years). Once the filter has been configured, we tap at the bottom of the Save button to make the changes effective; we can replicate the same changes for the Film category and for the Music category, so as to avoid the appearance of content not suitable for the age of our children.
Also from the Play Store, we can prevent minors from downloading paid apps by going back to the Settings menu, selecting the menu Request authentication for purchases and selecting the item For all purchases on Google Play from this device .
The second parental control that we can use on Android smartphones or tablets is Google Family, which allows you to monitor our children's devices remotely, adding them to a single family group.
To use Google Family we install the control app on our children's devices, while on our devices we will have to install the monitoring app, taking care to add our children's Google accounts to the Family account we manage (we can also control from the Play Store, going to Settings -> side sidebar -> Accounts -> Family group ). Once the family group has been configured, we will be able to decide which apps our children can use, the time of use of the phone or of each individual app, monitor their movements and authorize or not the installation of one or more apps.
Given the great "intrusiveness" of the app (just read the negative comments left by the teenagers in the control app!), Our advice is to talk about it openly with the children and to loosen the control sporadically or as they grow, so as to to increase the sense of responsibility hand in hand with the level of control applied.
Other parental control apps that we can install on our Android smartphone or tablet are:
- Space Parental Control Kids: one of the most effective control apps for minors, with real-time notifications on requests and authorizations.
- Secure Web Parental Control: an app similar to the previous one but useful for controlling and blocking the contents of unwanted Web pages;
- Kidslox Parental Control: another very useful app to expand the parental control system on Android, with app locks and GPS monitoring;
- Kaspersky SafeKids; directly from the manufacturer of a famous antivirus we can use a powerful parental control to monitor the activity of our minors and always know where they are with GPS monitoring tools;
- Norton Family parental control: another famous app for controlling children's activity, authorizing or not accessing apps, controlling time of use and authorizing purchase from the Play Store.
To learn more about the parental control on Android and find out how to block the already installed system apps and which apps we can let minors use without any danger, we advise you to continue reading our two App guides to block the opening of applications. on Android and the Games for children on Android smartphones to make them have fun safely .
Parental control in iOS
From the point of view of parental control iOS is definitely ahead, given that parental control is present on all iPhones and iPads that have received at least one update in the last 2 years (i.e. with at least iOS 11 as the operating system).To configure it, all we have to do is open the Settings app on the iPhone or iPad used by the child, go to the Time of use menu and immediately configure a security code to protect future configurations, by tapping on Use code "Time of use " . Once the security code has been created, we use the Pause use, App limitations, Always allowed and Contents and privacy menus to set the various parental controls on the device.
For example, if we want to block the use of social networking apps after 10 minutes of use, go to App limitations, tap on Add limitation of use, choose the Social network category (or one of the others present) and finally set 10 minutes (or another time of your choice) as a limit of use.
To block sites that are forbidden to minors, just go to Content and privacy -> Content restrictions -> Web content and set Restrict adult websites or Only websites allowed to apply the right level of control over Internet browsing. Other filters can be customized by visiting Content and privacy -> Content restrictions and acting between the various menu items present, so as to apply restrictions on downloadable and usable apps, films, music tracks and books, as well as applying a filter to the words used by Siri.
If we want to approve a request for a remote minor, we recommend that you configure Apple accounts in the Family platform, so that we can authorize the purchase of the app (we will be responsible for paying with our payment methods) and always monitor the activity carried out by all Apple devices assigned as minors within the family group; to learn more, we recommend reading Apple's official guide on In Famiglia.
Conclusions
Being a parent is not easy, but we can be helped by technology to be able to effectively control our children without being too strict when they use modern technological devices such as smartphones and tablets.If we want to extend security to the whole home network including PCs, notebooks and game consoles, we recommend you read our dedicated guides on How to protect children and family from the dangers of the Internet and Parental control and family filter on PC and internet : 5 ways to keep kids safe .
