Parenting is not an easy task. With digital safety for kids being a critical issue that modern-day parents need to worry about, parenting has become even harder. As modern problems require modern solutions, parental controls are one of the best solutions for parents to monitor and supervise their kid’s online activities and ensure their digital safety. 65% of young children aged 11-16 favor parental controls. So, why do parents need parental controls? What kinds of devices, software, and internet filters can you use for parental controls?
Why parents need parental controls?
- To monitor your kid’s online conversations and social media history and prevent cyberbullying or online predatory activities.
- To keep a solid track of your kid’s online internet activity anytime from anywhere.
- To manage your kid’s internet searches.
- To restrict your kid’s screen time by setting up time limits.
- To keep track of your kid’s online purchasing habits and set up spending limits.
- To restrict inappropriate content.
Best parental control devices
These are some of the best hardware devices that contain parental control systems. These devices can be mesh routers or some simple devices that you plug into your home’s wi-fi router to enable parental controls.
1. Gryphon Guardian Smart Mesh Router and Parental Control System
Gryphon Guardian is a mesh wi-fi system with a good amount of focus on parental control. Primarily a mesh router, its parental control features are also top-notch.
2. Circle Home Plus Parental Control System
The Circle Home Plus is a parental control platform to monitor your kid’s devices and track whether they are using the internet inappropriately. The system works when you plug in the device with your existing router. This eliminates the need for any extra wi-fi router.
3. TigerMom Parental Control System
The TigerMom is a full parental control solution to provide a safe internet browsing environment for families with children. The TigerMom system comes with the parental control device, instruction manual, an adapter, a USB cable, and an ethernet cable. There is also a TigerMom app that can be download on both Android and iOS smartphones.
Best parental control softwares
The following are the best software applications that you can install on your device for parental control. Each of them has various features, advantages, and disadvantages.
1. Qustodio
Qustodio is one of the great parental control software in the market. It has a well-designed interface, is compatible with all platforms like Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, has great features, and provides quality service.
2. Fenced.ai
Fenced.ai can be considered one of the best parental control systems available. It has a parental control solution for children, schools, and a business monitoring app. It is a non-intrusive app with some of the best features that you can use to monitor your child’s online activity.
Parental control guide to internet filters
Internet filters are applications or services that filter out the internet for any inappropriate content by blocking or restricting websites from internet access. Apart from the parental control solutions providing internet filtering features, here are two of the other best internet filters for parents.
1. OpenDNS
OpenDNS is an internet protection application that protects your internet from any harmful content by filtering out inappropriate content. It is a web security and internet solution to make your internet faster, safer, and more reliable through the cloud-based DNS service. The OpenDNS Home from OpenDNS is a parental control and internet filter that helps parents maintain a safe and healthy environment at home.
2. DNSFilter
The DNSFilter is AI-powered threat protection and internet filtering solution that is fully API-driven. The internet filtering application is easy, accurate, and reliable and uses the DNS to block harmful content and malicious websites.
Summing up
It’s hard to be a parent, especially in this digital age. Parent’s constant worry arises from the potential threat of children being targeted by predators and threats online. Software is more suitable because parental control software is reliable, effective, easy to set up, and also more affordable considering the service they give.
You do not have to spend money on any extra physical device or manage your network settings with parental control software. Also, you can also ask your Internet Service provider to block various websites to your home internet network or use other filtering services like Google SafeSearch to filter the internet contents.
