We don’t think much of granting our kids access to smartphones as it’s considered pretty normal in today’s time and age. However, kids being kids can take things too far and start to spend most of their time on their phones, raising a red flag that warrants your attention. The right way to react in such situations can be perplexing, especially if you’re completely ruled out the option of taking away their phone. If you’re looking for some guidance, you’ve come to the right place as we have some tips that will allow you to prevent your kids from abusing their smartphone privileges.
Monitoring Apps
Children can and will get carried away with smartphones in their hands, but you can stop that from happening by installing monitoring apps on their devices. Almost all of the apps in this category serve as text message tracker, cell phone tracker, and most importantly, they allow you to keep tabs on each and activity being performed by your child on the internet. These apps will also let you know how much time your kids are spending on the web and who they’re interacting with. Serving as a cell phone tracker, a monitoring app keeps you aware of your kid’s location, helping you confirm if they really are where they should be, or if they’re somewhere they shouldn’t be. Aside from these benefits, over-usage and misuse of internet can also be detected and reduced through these apps.
Block Websites
If your children are spending most of their time on the web or visiting inappropriate web pages, you can start to block websites that your children like to visit the most. This can be accomplished through parental controls or other digital tools, which need to be installed on your kids’ smartphone and then can be remotely controlled by you. If the websites are blocked, the kids will most likely spend less time on their smartphone.
Get Rid of Pornographic Content
When children first start going to school, they start to learn all sorts of stuff, some of which is good while some of it isn’t. More often than not, they learn about porn during their interaction with other kids and their curiosity tempt them into accessing it through their smartphones. This can become an addiction if not addressed early, so if you are buying your kids a phone, then block all major pornographic websites or apply a filter. This way, kids will not be able to get access to porn, hence saving you a whole lot of trouble.
Physical Sports
Nowadays kids are more interested in their digital gadgets than physical sports. It is your responsibility to take them out and try to get them into some sport that they would like to play with their friends. Physical sports are one of the best ways to keep your child away from any digital gadget. If they start to enjoy their time on a certain sport, then they will most likely spend more time playing it rather than wasting it on their phone.
Other Hobbies
This point is relatively similar to the previous one. Without any hobbies, children like to spend all their day on their smartphones browsing different websites. However, if they do find some hobby other than internet, then the likelihood is that they will spend most of their time with it rather than wasting it on social networking sites.
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