Parental Controlling

Have you noticed how much time kids (and adults spend on devices)?

We just finished summer break and one thing I noticed was my kids did not really play with many board games, read many books, or even play outdoors or ask to go to the pool nearly as much as in the past.

They would wake up and immediately grab their phones or ask to play their xbox time.

I allow my kids to have technology.  We have an Xbox, a nintendo switch, a playstation 3, a nintendo Wii, a chromebook, and the teenagers have iPhones.

I find it difficult to regulate the amount of time they spend playing games or even staring at screens watching each other play or watching TV.   For each device, I set parental controls.  I will explain what I do for each device and how my kids try to go around it and what that led to.

My parental controls started with the iPhones.  I didn't want my kids to be looking at inappropriate things on the internet, especially youtube, or losing their innocence too early.  I searched endlessly for a parental control app that would allow me to limit content and restrict time usage on the phone.  The app I found best was Ourpact because it allows you to restrict individual apps by a schedule or by permanently blocking them.

Ourpact for the premium version costs a mere $4.95 per month and you can use it on all the mobile devices in your family.  The way it works is the parent downloads Ourpact on their phone and then you add a device to the app, and you need your child's phone or iPad while you are installing this.  It doesn't take long and their website guides you through the set up.  Once you install our pact on their phone, they get an ourpact Jr. app on theirs for them to "play and pause" the time you allow them to have.  In ourpact, for each device you are controlling, you have the opportunity to set time limits for usage of apps, such as games, tv, etc.  Then you have the opportunity to set time blocks, for example, my boys phones shut off at 9 pm (all apps I have on the schedule)- they magically disappear off their phone, and come back at 730 am (when they will be leaving for school)- this will keep them from being distracted by their phones while getting ready for school.  Sometimes, I set a midday block on the weekends just to force them to do something else.  You can also randomly decide to block their phone, like let's say it's dinner time and they are ignoring you, hit block until i say so and BOOM all their apps disappear, within ten seconds you will hear them complaining how they were in the middle of a game...  If they are being good and you are on a road trip or something, you can choose, ALLOW until I say so or even a set time, such as 30 min.  Another feature is you will be alerted anytime they add a new app on their phone, even if it's one your family has on the cloud.  This is how I figured out when my son downloaded the parent app for the switch and that is a story for the switch controls.  You can set each app to be available on their scheduled playing time (games etc), always available (phone, text, camera), or Never available (fortnite)- this allows you to block access to something they keep trying to re-download off the cloud.

Problems I have run into with ourpact- my son once downloaded the parent app for ourpact off the cloud and he figured out my password because it was the same one I always use.  They were logging in on his phone and changing settings to make their games always available or giving themselves extra time.  I eventually found out and he lost his phone for quite a while.  But I was able to permanently block him from accessing this again from the cloud.  The main issue I have with ourpact is if they have their time playing and they turn off the wifi, ourpact will stop working and will not kick them off when their time is up until they turn wifi back on- this is mainly a problem at the house.  This is what led me to other measures.  However ourpact is still worth it for the fact that I was able to permanently block fortnite off my sons' phone and i know when they are at sleepovers, their apps shut off at 9, and I can see anytime they get new apps.

Next, I bought a kitchen safe.  This looks like an oxo good grips container but it has a timer on top and locks on the sides.  If the kids are bad (like downloading ourpact on their phone)- I put their phone in the box and set the timer and it locks them in there, yes once it was 7 days.  Even if the batteries die, it will not unlock until the time is up.  You can fit game controllers in there too.

I listened to a podcast and this guy was talking about a device called BOB that he used to limit TV time for his kids.  I was very intrigued and ordered BOB off Amazon for 80$.  BOB is amazing.  You plug your monitor cord into it and lock it in with a key, the kids can't get it out.  You set a master code and then you are allowed to create 6 accounts, each account has it's own PIN and you can set daily or weekly tv time limits, as well as time frames for which they can use them.  Each of my kids has a PIN and 45 minutes of TV time.  This has been in effect for about 6 months now.  There is no fighting they actually will use each others pins if they are watching the same show.  It has eliminated many headaches.  If we are watching a movie, I set the 6th user for a longer time for the day and we use that.  It solved a small dilemma for me this summer because my kids were trying to use their 2 hours of xbox, 2 hours of phone, and 45 minutes of TV and to me, that's too much screen and not enough of life.  So, I had them use the xbox with the monitor plugged into the BOB, so they had to make the choice of watch TV or play the xbox.  Again, if they were good and I decided to let them play more xbox later, I can always add more time to BOB if they earned it.  The best part about BOB is if their time is up and they type in their PIN it shows the message of "go outside and do something fun".

The xbox one has parent controls.  They were not too hard to set up, but basically, the parent has to set up their account first and then add on all the kids.  When you add them in, it bills a small amt of money to your act to make sure it's real.  Once you have your kids linked to your microsoft account, you can set time blocks they are allowed to play in, time limits per day (I set 2 hours each weekend day and 0 on school days), you can set age limits and content limits, as well as block certain websites and games for your children.  You can also get a weekly report showing how much time your child plays and what games.  It will show you what devices as well.  Again, my son did login when he found my husband's password and changed the times, but, as long as I am diligent and check frequently, I reset it and then he gets grounded (when will he learn?).

Nintendo switch also has parent controls.  My husband can set these from his phone.  He can set daily time limits as well as content restriction (preschool means no fortnite if you know what I mean).  He can also check the daily time played on the device-- again, when we see 7 hours in a day, we know someone was messing with the system.  Kid we are on your trail!

The chrome book is difficult.  The kids (especially high schooler need it for homework).  It is a very inexpensive computer and that means less options for controlling stuff. I couldn't find a way to search history or block websites.  Last year, I spent sooo many nights constantly looking over my son's shoulder watching him quickly toggle off twitter or youtube and go back to google classroom to look like he was doing his HW.  I was very frustrated.  A friend of mine suggested going to the router itself to block content.

I found a device called router limits, which sounded perfect, but it wasn't compatible with my router.  I ended up going to the website of my router.  We have netgear nighthawk.  I did a quick search and found directions to set up parent controls.   I was able to set up parent controls and have an app on my computer and my phone. Once I had the router app on the devices, I had to create an account on openDNS.com- this is where you go in and set up restrictions and blocks.   I set up a block on youtube, twitter, and epic games(fortnite).  This mom isn't playing.  I can set up a bypass so I can still access youtube, which I do use for work, on my computer.  I can also set up time limits for the website restrictions and I can set up individual restrictions if I download the genie app on my kids' devices.  The openDNS works with my router to control what my wireless will allow.  If the kids are on data, I can't control their website, except through the phone and our pact.  I also can limit their data access with the verizon app.

I spent a lot of time reading and trying to find a perfect answer.  The problem is there are so many devices and ways around stuff.

A great resource for me was www.commonsensemedia.org.

I am currently reading Glow Kids, which is a great read about technology and what it is doing to our kids' developing minds.

None of these are perfect, but combined, I am sending a message to my kids that I'm watching, thinking, and caring about them and their future.  Kids will be kids, at least they are not looking at porn or drinking or doing drugs, but sometimes I wonder, is this just as bad.... stealing, sneaking, lying, avoiding... I'm not just going to let my kids fail at life because they feel they are somehow entitled to the internet and unlimited gaming.  It's a lot of work for me to keep track of, but it's my job to be the parent, not the phone or the game.

I hope this provided some insight.