Monday, August 19, 2013

No Parental Monitoring for Tweens on Cell Phones


I recently discovered many tweens who have social networking accounts don’t have their privacy settings set to the highest level.  This is where parental monitoring is needed to advise tweens and teens about their privacy settings. It seems many parents are not monitoring what their kids are doing online.  

Do parents think their kids are safe enough online not to have any parental monitoring? Many parents don’t realize that online predators use social networking sites as their cyber playground for grooming kids.  When privacy settings are not set to the highest levels, then all social networking accounts are fair game for anyone to view their activities and personal information.  

If you are one the parents who think it is okay to permit your tween to have a social networking account, remember the number one rule for teens and tweens who have any type of a social networking account is always set your privacy settings to the highest level, so they are only sharing information with their friends not strangers across the entire web. 

If you are interesting in parental monitoring, check out My Mobile Watch Dog.  This parental control software for cell phones can help you be sure that your kids have their privacy settings set to the highest level.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Social Networks, Friend or Foe


The culture we live in today encourages everyone to post on social networking sites and tweet where they are and what they did all day. It can be great to know what your friends are doing to pleasantly surprise them by showing up at a sports event they are attending. But on the reverse side, having someone you don’t know show up at an event is not a pleasant surprise but a horrible situation. No wonder why so many online predators have a field day with all the information they can gather from social networking sites. Online predators know they can be whoever they want to be on a social networking site. They study what young girls and boys like and what the newest trend is, in other words, online predators do their homework on children. 

If online predators are doing their homework to friend our children, don’t you think as parents we owe it to them to do our homework on the latest digital trend, game or technology? 

The majority of the social networking sites require children to be at least 13 and these sites have policies stating the age requirement, but it is really up to the parents to keep children under 13 off these sites. As well as, parents need to make such their children are not sharing too much personal information on social networking sites and setting the privacy level to the highest. 

As a parent it is okay to be a pest sometimes (meaning you are involved in their activities), especially if it is for the safety of your children. Knowing what activities your children like to do online and remembering it can change every week or sometime every few days. Children hear about a new game or website from their friends and they will want to check it out, if they haven’t done so at their friend’s house or school. So being a pesky parent is okay if you want to stay in the know of how many friends they have on a social networking site and they actually are friends with them in real life. This is just part of doing parent’s homework.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Teens' Secrets on Cell Phones

When was the last time you looked at your tween’s cell phone? What I mean, when did you actually hold it and look through the photos, messages and Google searches?

Many parents may think "I can’t do this to my teen"; it is imposing on his/her privacy. Well, parents better think again about looking at your tween’s cell phone. Many tweens and teens admit they know their parents don’t look at their cell phone, so they are more incline to keep secrets on their cell phone than they do on their Facebook account. Teens are getting savvier when it comes to knowing what their parents are monitoring regularly.

So if you don’t have a parental control monitoring software such as My Mobile Watchdog  on your tween or teen’s phone, then you better be checking into what your tween or teen may be doing on his/her cell phone.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Thinking About Mobile Parental Controls


You may think twice about mobile parental controls when you find out that according to Facebook, over 845 million users log on to its site at least once a month and over 425 million people use Facebook's mobile products.

Parental controls on kids’ cell phones are a must today, especially when you learn how many people access their Facebook account from their cell phone.  

These statistics give you an idea that across all age groups, people like to access their social networking accounts on the go through their cell phones. Parents need to remember that today’s cell phones, which so many are the smartphones, are microcomputers. So kids who have smartphones, basically are walking around with a computer.

Not only can kids access their social networking accounts at any time, but so can millions of other people who may not be using Facebook for it true purpose of connecting with friends, but rather as a means to reach teens and find out where and what teens are doing. Mobileparental controls on kids’ cell phones help parents stay connected with their kids and aware if online predators are grooming and tracking them. 

How many people think mobile parental controls are necessary for kids’ safety?