The amount of time children spend online and on digital devices has been steadily increasing. While previously it was only for entertainment purposes, now it also includes learning, gaming, and communicating with friends and family. While the benefits of being digitally connected are evident, some risks come with it.
Today’s parents must equip themselves with strong and reliable parental controls that help guard against online predators, cyberbullying, and online addiction. In this article, we look at some of these vulnerabilities in more detail and present the case for stronger parental controls like KidsGuard Pro.
Mapping Out the Digital Lives of Children Today
Never before in history have children been exposed to digital devices as they are today. Most parents are compelled to buy their children a mobile device when they reach the pre-teen age group. But even before this, kids are already exposed to the internet through a smart TV at home, a computer in their bedroom or at school, and other devices around them.
As such, they grow up with the notion that being digitally connected is the norm. Parents often have their hands tied because of their reliance on digital devices, making it hard to advise their children against using them.
Therefore, young ones end up joining popular platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram early because of exposure to them. Although some parents try to supervise their initial use of social media and digital devices, over time, this supervision wanes off, and kids can now access them whenever they want. This independent online activity has many implications, as we will see in the next section.
Online Vulnerabilities and Their Impact on Children
We’ve seen that children gain the confidence to use their digital devices and access the internet without parental supervision. Unknown to them are the risks that abound on these platforms, including:
- Cyberbullying: We might as well refer to 2025 as the age of trolling, owing to the prevalence of the habit on social media today. It is not the only form of cyberbullying, as other people often harass other users through spamming their inboxes. When it occurs to children, it may have serious implications such as low self-esteem and suicidal thoughts.
- Online Predators: Children who are yet to know the sinister intentions of online predators may be groomed without their knowledge, resulting in their normalization of sexting and sharing explicit content at a young age.
- Exposure to Inappropriate Content: Due to a lack of supervision or parental control tools like FamiGuard, kids may also be exposed to pornographic, violent, or radical content without their consent or the idea of its lasting effects.
- Privacy Risks: The internet is a hotbed of data collection by unscrupulous apps and websites, which an unsupervised child may not realize. Additionally, kids may leave their digital footprints all over or be tempted into oversharing due to social media trends.
The Role of Parents and Guardians
Parents and guardians play a crucial enabling role when it comes to children being victims of the online vulnerabilities discussed above.
Many modern parents underestimate the veracity of digital threats that their children are likely to be exposed to on the internet. This awareness gap leads to laxity in supervising their activities, resulting in more problems later when kids are addicted to digital devices and cannot do without them. In other extreme cases, one of the discussed risks, such as cyberbullying, is the wake-up call.
Some parents and guardians are also overly reliant on verbal guidance, which fails to work because there is no actual enforcement. Kids learn to agree with parents when they advise them against using the internet or spending excessive time on their mobile phones, but do not actually follow their instructions.
Why Stronger Parental Controls Matter
So, what is the case for stronger parental controls, and why do they matter? The following points will support the argument and convince you to use one to help you in digital parenting.
- a) Proactive Monitoring: Stronger parental controls allow you to monitor your child’s device consistently and get early warning signs of any impending risks. For example, advanced parental control apps can send you geofence alerts to let you know when your child roams beyond a designated safe zone. This information enables you to track their location in real-time and even check in on them to ascertain that they are safe.
- b) Customization and Flexibility: Stronger parental controls allow you the flexibility of varying controls to suit your child’s age and your specific monitoring needs. Moreover, specialized tools like FamiGuard for Snapchat can help you monitor activity on this app, which teenagers more commonly use as opposed to other social media platforms like Facebook.
- c) Support for Healthy Digital Habits: With advanced parental controls, parents get the chance to manage various aspects of their children’s digital activities like screen time, app access, web history, online purchases, and more to foster healthier habits.
Addressing Common Concerns About Parental Controls
Some parents choose to stay away from parental control tools for various reasons. Below are some of the common concerns.
- Privacy and Trust Issues: Understandably, parents are concerned about privacy and trust issues if they start monitoring their children’s devices and online activities. To address this, it is important for them to understand that a balance has to be struck between monitoring and respect for the child’s autonomy. Having an open and transparent conversation with the child about online risks can help you arrive at this point.
- Overreliance on Tech: Other parents fear that parental controls will make them overreliant on technology to do their parenting. The truth is that when paired with human judgment, using these tools makes digital parenting more effective and fulfilling.
- False Sense of Security: It is also common for some parents to say that parental control only provides a false sense of security. Again, this can easily be disputed by the fact that digital parenting does not stop at acquiring these parental control tools. Consistent monitoring is necessary to address other concerns that may arise and to understand what works best for the parent and child involved.
Conclusion
The reality of modern life is that digital devices and the internet are here to stay. As such, parents must seek the help of parental controls to help in keeping their kids safe. However, it is important to understand that these controls are only for safeguarding kids and not restricting their freedom.
Understanding your child’s interactions with digital devices and their online activities is a crucial step to knowing which risks they may encounter and settling on the best solution to help in digital monitoring. We recommend trying out FamiGuard Pro or KidsGuard Pro, which offer stronger parental controls and more flexibility in customizing permissions to suit your specific needs.
