Smartphones have become a necessity in today’s world. With their help, we not only maintain contact with loved ones, but also have the opportunity to receive information, study, work, have fun, communicate in social networks. For children, smartphones are, among other things, a status item. In a sense, having a gadget and interacting with it is a certain form of socialization, especially among teenagers. But is it an addiction and what is the prevention of this phenomenon?
Your child studies well, has mostly a good mood, communicates with peers not only in the virtual world, spends time with family and has the opportunity to interact with a smartphone for a long time? There is nothing wrong with that as long as vision does not suffer, headaches do not occur and sleep is not disturbed.
Addiction to gadgets is:
- violations in providing basic needs (food, sleep, safety);
- change in behavior – aggressiveness, irritability, lethargy, alienation;
- not wanting to find alternative activities (hobbies, sports, real communication);
- worsening of school performance;
- lack of friends.
In such cases, the smartphone becomes the meaning of life. Prohibition of interaction with the gadget causes inappropriate behavioral reactions. What should parents do?
Not just listening, but hearing
It is worth talking to the child first of all, what interests her in the virtual world. In order for such a conversation to take place on parity terms, adults should prepare. For this, you can use the monitoring app – the application “Parental control Kroha”.
Кid monitoring will help you find out what the child is looking for on the Internet, what sites he visits, what content he is interested in. Such information will make it possible to find a common language – to offer an alternative, only several times more interesting than on the smartphone screen.
The guardian parent should be directed to identify any dangerous contacts or unacceptable information that may harm the mental and physical health of the child.
Installing a parental tracker on a child’s device will help to constantly know about the location, stay in a safe, previously defined geozone, and receive notifications in case of a change in the usual route of movement. And monitor screen time will give an idea of how much time the child spends on the smartphone, when exactly it happens and how often these sessions take place.
That is, screen guide parental control is exactly the application that notifies parents in real time about the actions of the child when he is outside the home.
Establishing rules
First of all, you should not “press with authority”, i.e. do not prohibit categorically. But you shouldn’t be too democratic either. It is necessary to establish rules that would satisfy everyone. However, it will not be superfluous for parents to monitor their implementation when the child is outside the home.
For this, the application “Parental control Kroha” offers quite a lot of functionality:
- limit screen time, which helps limit interaction with the device within the framework established by previous agreements;
- limit app time sets limits only on certain programs – entertainment, games, social networks. At the same time, it is still possible to use the Internet for education;
- child filter allows you to monitor and block sites and content that are unacceptable for a child, even at the stage of searching in the browser;
- monitor kids – remote control not only of movement, but also of contacts in the phone book, communication in social networks, photos and videos viewed or shared by the child;
- secure family enables all adults who have the program installed on their gadgets to be aware of the child’s life and to be able to quickly react to any emergency situations.
Parents should decide for themselves whether it is necessary to notify the child about the installation of the parental control program. In some cases, this can cause an unpredictable reaction, protest and even attempts in any way to get rid of such “interference in personal space”, as teenagers believe. However, child control is, first of all, an effort to protect the child as much as possible from the negative influence of both the virtual and real environment. After all, due to age characteristics and mental lability, children are unable to critically assess risks.
Changes for everyone
Very often, children repeat the actions of adults. It is worth very carefully monitoring yourself in the sense of interaction with a smartphone. And in response to comments, you can hear: “You yourself hang on the phone”. Therefore, the rules for using devices should be for all family members. And in this case, the application “Parental Control Kroha” can also help.
- The time control function will help to turn off the phone at a predetermined time without a reminder – during meals, communication with family, during lessons and extra classes. By the way, adults can install the same function on their gadgets in order not to make an exception for themselves and show by example that such restrictions are not critical.
- Кids mode will gradually teach not only the child, but also the whole family, to stop interacting with the smartphone an hour before bedtime. This time is better spent in face-to-face communication with parents or friends. Taking a walk before going to bed, discussing the events that happened during the day, sharing impressions about interesting news is not only an interesting activity, but also calms the nervous system. The result is a good, healthy sleep.
- The child lock function allows you to set the child’s device to the “correct” content. Because not all information, even from open sources on the Internet, will be acceptable for children.
- Make it a rule to spend a day without the Internet for all family members. The screen limit function will help you configure the gadget in such a way that only calls remain available. The use of other features of the smartphone will be temporarily blocked.
Of course, all rules and restrictions in each family will be individual. Someone will be able to allow the use of a smartphone only on weekends, and for someone this option will be completely unacceptable. By setting user control, for example, you can categorically prohibit a child under a certain age from having a personal account on a social network.
The main thing is to remember that the child’s consent to comply with restrictive rules must be voluntary. Otherwise, the result will be the exact opposite of expectations. If all requirements are met (and the kid guard will help to find out about any violations), use incentives – a day at attractions, a trip to an interesting place, a family trip to a cafe or a movie.
A child is an unknown universe that must be protected from destruction by negative external influences. Adults cannot be around all the time, and there is no need for that. But the application “Parental control Kroha” will always be ready.
