What are Parental Controls?

As an adult, you have years of experience when it comes to keeping yourself safe. You’re pretty good at spotting scams for instance, so you know not to click suspicious links in emails pretending to be from your bank for instance.

Your kids don’t have that experience however. They rely on you to keep them safe.

Parental controls are one way you can protect them. These tools limit access to adult content, and help to prevent strangers trying to contact them. Parental controls are like stair guards; your child is free to walk about the house – but the safety gate prevents them from falling down the stairs and hurting themselves.

So what can parental controls actually do?

Filter search results

Search engines like Google and Bing work hard to block out adult content, but sometimes something inappropriate will slip through on a standard search. Parental controls can help by forcing search engines to use ‘safe search’ to automatically block links and images from adult and criminal websites.

Block access to age-restricted apps and sites

Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram require users to be at least 13 years old. But there’s nothing to stop your kids setting up an account if they lie about their age. Parental controls allow you to block access to social media websites and mobile apps. This gives you time to teach your kids how to use social media safely – and how to use the block and report tools to deal with inappropriate contacts and messages.

Record and report online activity

As your kids grow up, you want them to make smarter decisions. Parental controls not only filter and block content, but they can also keep track of the websites visited and apps used. You can use these reports to check that kids are being responsible – and to flag potential issues early. When you spot a problem, you can talk to your child about the risks and provide advice on how to be safer.

Set time limits

Adults know how easy it is to spend hours online playing games, learning or watching videos. So when your kids head to bed, you want to know they are actually going to sleep. Parental controls allow you to set time limits on your computers and tablets; if your kids try to get online after bedtime, all internet and app access is blocked – one less distraction to keep them awake!

To learn more about parental controls and how they keep your kids safe, download a free trial of Panda Dome today. You can make the Internet a safer place for them in a matter of minutes.