Parental Control In The Digital Age
Children use the internet from an early age, a fact that led to the creation of parental controls. It is not unusual to see children with only two years managing the YouTube video channel to enjoy one of their favorite cartoon videos.
As they grow, this use becomes wider, as does their curiosity to discover everything that new technologies offer them. Regardless of the myriad of advantages and disadvantages that can be found about children using the Internet, we must be aware that new technologies are part of their lives.
It is only necessary that adults know how to teach the little ones the best way to use them and to get their benefit. To carry this out, one of the great allies that adults find is parental control.
Today we will talk a little more about this option that electronic devices offer so that adults and children can enjoy new technologies with greater peace of mind.
Parental control: what is it?
Although it is currently used by many adults, there is a large part of the population that does not know the meaning of parental control and the possibilities that this tool offers. As its name suggests, it is the control that parents or adults around the child carry out on the electronic devices that the little one uses.
The great benefits that parental control offered in its beginnings made this tool develop and expand to what it is today.
With parental control, adults have the possibility to restrict or block the electronic device that the child is using. In addition to the device, you can also block specific searches, applications or purchases.
Depending on the device that is being used, since even televisions or DVD players currently have the possibility of activating parental control, this restriction will be carried out in a different way.
However, the most used blocking methods so that the child cannot access a specific content are the fingerprint or facial recognition, or a specific password.
An educational and conscious use
The Internet offers thousands of very beneficial contents for the little ones. However, hundreds of thousands of others are not, despite drawing their attention. One of the clearest examples in which to apply parental control is in games that are downloaded to mobile phones.
On many occasions, children enjoy free game applications that, however, offer the possibility of buying to advance faster in the game. Children are not aware of this purchase and make it, which can become a big problem for adults.
For this reason, parental control is a fantastic tool for children to enjoy the Internet in a fully controlled way without any problems.
Other ways to control internet use
Using the internet improperly or using it excessively can cause serious problems for the child. For this reason, from the first time you are given permission to use the technologies, it is convenient to agree on a series of guidelines with him.
These guidelines should be according to your age, as well as the use you can make of certain social networks or applications that are more common in certain age groups.
Set a schedule or time
The first of the guidelines that you must agree with the children is a schedule for using the internet. In this way, they themselves will be aware that they cannot be connected all the time.
This schedule can be defined for every day, once a week or even monthly. It is also very common to let children use the internet only on weekends to avoid, thus, that this affects their school performance.
Determine places of use, complements to parental control
Nowadays, it is very common to go to public places of entertainment such as restaurants or bars and see children engrossed in the screen of a mobile device. This also happens even in places like parks, spaces dedicated to children’s fun where new technologies should take a back seat.
For this reason, it is advisable to determine certain places of use and restrict this, for example, to when children are at home and not in places where they can enjoy other children or other activities.
By establishing these guidelines and others that you think are especially convenient for your child, you will be encouraging children to use the internet responsibly.
