Posted on

Android Parental Control – What are your options?

android parental control app

The invention of smartphones and social media combined with younger children now having cell phones has led to new needs and new possibilities in parenting.  With the added responsibility and dangers associated with smartphone ownership, it’s no surprise that parents quickly turn to child monitoring and parental control apps. There are several parental control apps and options for Android; we’ll take a look at a few. It’s also good to remember, when it comes to parental control apps, to consider very specifically what the app needs to do for your family.

We need parental control apps for a variety of reasons. Our own peace of mind as parents is as good of a reason as any when it comes to wondering about a child’s whereabouts and well-being. Children exploring boundaries can also require more intense scrutiny than we’re able to gather simply by observing in the home as parents. Some parental controls are necessary to keep children from texting too much; some are simply good for curbing problem behaviors.

Which Android Parental Control Apps Should You Use?

The Android platform offers a few good options for parental monitoring and control apps. For younger children, apps like Reward Chart can make for an easy transition into parental monitoring, as well as enforcing good behavior. Apps that prevent tampering with the phone like Kids Place are popular with parents, but not always with kids. Apps that monitor location and social media, as well as phone usage are also popular with parents, though require a monthly service fee.

Apps like Kids Place and Kid Mode can be used to prevent all tampering with a phone. Parents can install these types of apps to choose which apps and features the child can access. Apps like Reward Chart, if installed early in a child’s phone progression, can help a child develop good behaviors and make the adjustment to parental monitoring apps easy.

Monitoring apps like Code9, MMGuardian and Phone Control give parents varying monitoring options but come with monthly or up-front fees. Other family locator apps can track children using GPS, but most come with few options. Norton Online Family offers online monitoring but lacks GPS tracking or location alerts. MamaBear offers multiple GPS monitoring options, as well as social Media and driving speed alerts, making it an excellent, well-rounded solution to parental control apps and is free during its beta launch.

General GPS monitoring apps are good, but they don’t provide as much depth with additional alerts and multi-functionality. Apps that prevent tampering are a good idea if a parent wants to be sure that software stays put. When combined with the MamaBear app, these apps give parents a free, comprehensive solution for child monitoring and parental control.

What Android parental control apps have you tried?

Let us know in the comments section below.

Looking for a parental control app for your Android device? We review the top 8 parental control apps on Android devices.
Android Mobile Apps
Date Published: 01/11/2013
4 / 5 stars
Posted on

Happy New Year From MamaBear

Happy New Year from the MamaBear team! Well . . . do you have your New Year’s Resolutions planned?  They are so hard to stick to, right? It’s hard because it’s discipline. Ultimately, New Year’s resolutions are all about discipline and accountability. Working out when we say we’re going to work out. Skipping fries when we say we’re going to cut carbs. Consistency is hard to maintain with new habits. We’ve all broken a few resolutions here or there, and we all know how hard it can be to maintain constant discipline.

If we, as adults, have a hard time with discipline, it is no wonder that our kids battle with it just as much. It’s human nature to want to explore and push boundaries. I haven’t found a parent yet that says, “My kids do exactly what they are supposed to after being told just one time.” As many parents know, it’s about consistent reinforcement.

Obviously we feel that keeping a watchful eye on our children is a good idea – it’s why we created the MamaBear app in the first place. But remember, no one is perfect. Not us as parents and certainly not our children. If we can’t keep our own New Year’s resolutions every time, then maybe we can show some empathy when we feel overwhelmed by our words of repetitive discipline.

We encourage parents to use MamaBear as a tool to gather information. Information to have continued, relevant, consistent conversations about important issues like appropriate behavior on social media, why certain places are off limits and why accountability is important. It’s not hard to teach kids the importance of showing up for practice when they say they will. It just takes consistent reinforcement, even when a child strays a bit.

Going over the speed limit, visiting places we’d rather our kids not visit or perhaps taking a day off school without you knowing are ways boundaries could be tested. We all tested our boundaries growing up, now we have tools like MamaBear that give us vital information to talk about consequences. Tools to give our children consistent and empathetic dialog when they push against our boundaries in the New Year.  Make it a great 2013!

Posted on

Step-By-Step Guide To Getting Started With The MamaBear App

Child Tracking

MamaBear installs easily and parents can begin monitoring a child’s location, driving speed and social media activity immediately. Here is a step-by-step guide to getting started with the MamaBear app for iPhone and Android.

1. Download the App on the primary parent’s phone

The MamaBear child monitoring app is available in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Just search for MamaBear and click install. The Android or iOS web enabled smartphone or device will do the rest.

2. Sign Up

Once the app is downloaded on the parent’s phone, click on the icon from your home screen to open the app and then click “Sign Up” to create an account and add your family members.
*Note: add the phone number and/or e-mail address you want to monitor as the child. Added guardians will have the same parental view as the main account holder. The main account holder and guardians will only be able to view children’s location and alerts, not each others.

3. Download the MamaBear App on the child’s phone

Download MamaBear from google play or the iTunes App Store on your child’s phone. Select Log In. DO NOT select sign up. Log In with your child’s phone number and your password. The child will see three safety features on their view of the MamaBear App – Check In, Come Get Me, Emergency buttons for a discreet way of getting in touch with you.

4. Ensure the MamaBear App stays put

If your child closes MamaBear out of memory or deletes the app on their phone, you won’t receive location points. You will receive a notification if this happens and a check-in request button will appear when you tap your child’s icon if we haven’t received a location point from their phone in a while.

Here’s a video to help set up parental restrictions on iphone to prevent deleting apps:  Click Here To Watch

You can monitor Facebook and Instagram activity without your child logging in to the app. You’ll simply need their log in and password for each social site.

5. Set Up location, driving and social media alerts

On the parent’s phone MamaBear version, click on “Settings” (it’s the button that looks like a gear on the top right). Select your child under the “Family” tab. You will see the easy-to-follow options for setting up alerts for location, social media driving. Location alerts include a school alert, a safe places alert or a restricted places alert. Monitor Facebook and Instagram activity including restricted words alerts. Lastly set the driving sped you’d like to be alerted to if your child drives or rides over. Once opened, each of these alerts menu options has more in depth options for parents to use.

Child Tracker setup

6. Choose alert delivery type

Once the alerts are set up, it is just a matter of choosing your notification preference. In the “Settings” menu simply click “Edit Profile.” Scroll down to “Alert Type” to choose your preferred notification. Email alerts are delivered via email while Push based notification delivers alerts directly to the phone’s notification center. Push notification is the default alert types for MamaBear.

With these easy steps, parents are prepared with information and insight using the MamaBear child monitoring app. If you ever have any questions about using MamaBear, don’t hesitate to email us at info@localhost.

Posted on

Dealing With Drop-Off Anxiety? There’s an app for that.

Does dropping your kids off at a friend’s house leave you anxious or nervous? Do you ever wonder if they are staying there or going somewhere else? If so, I know how you feel.  It’s a pretty normal reaction as our kids start taking further steps away from us and out into the world.  I imagine every parent deals with drop off anxiety at some point in their child’s life, probably more likely in the tween/teen years when they want to go to a friend’s house you may not know so well or to the movies or mall without you. With the MamaBear child tracker app; you can have a little peace of mind and maybe be a bit more willing to drop your child off.

The MamaBear app allows parents to monitor the child’s location in real-time, as well as receive alerts if the child leaves the drop-off location ahead of schedule. It’s security knowing they are where you expect them to be.

I want my kids to experience as much freedom as they can without me on their heels, but finding the balance of taming my anxiety and letting them roam can be a juggling act. And the distance grows as much as the worry as they get older going from roaming the neighborhood, to the mall or even a community fair. The MamaBear app has some other features too.  It also allows parents to give children some flexibility by sending alerts only when a child enters an area that a parent chooses as restricted. MamaBear further informs parents by alerting them if the child uses inappropriate language or adds friends on social media as well as monitor their driving speed.

We do our best to give our kids tools and advice to help get themselves out of uncomfortable situations. The MamaBear app allows parents to rest assured, knowing the child has a readily available and easy to use app to make contact. The child can check in with the parent, reach out for an immediate pickup or notify the parent of an emergency with a few simple clicks on a smartphone. The children’s interface is three simple buttons to make using the app quick and discreet for children.

It’s simple – we just want to keep our kids safe. I’m pretty sure it’s a major commonality among all parents. Some are just more anxious than others when our kids are exploring the world. The MamaBear child tracker app was specifically developed to allow parents to observe more of their child’s activities and, as a result, worry a little less.