By Mark Isaiah David Part of parenting is finding that delicate and ever-changing balance between keeping your children safe and letting them fall, fail, and be exposed to (acceptable levels of) danger so that they’ll grow strong, capable, and confident that they can face life’s challenges. A child’s online life, however, bears special consideration. In the internet, no one is exactly who they say they are, and the young and inexperienced are vulnerable to the deceit prevalent in the network. There are cyber criminals who exploit and profit from people’s poor cyber security practices, and there are far, far too many adult content out there that are ridiculously accessible to children. Those are just the external threats. Without proper supervision, there are also several internal concerns that could blow up to become genuine problems. Screen time is addictive, even to adults – what more for young people who are still learning how to discipline themselves? Teenagers can posts the stupidest things – things that they could end up regretting in the future. And as difficult as it is to accept, even your little angels can be mean to other kids if no one is looking. That is why it is important to establish special security measures for children whenever they’re online. Online access is a privilege and with that privilege comes responsibilities and accountabilities. Fortunately, both Android and iOS devices have built-in parental control features that are easy to set up. These parental control features are built-in to your smartphones, and easy enough to set up. However, if you want another layer of protection, there are third-party applications out there that offer a greater range of capabilities that will give you greater control on how what your child can do with his/her device, and even the hours he can access it. Qustodio is a full suite of parental control tools that always get high ratings on reviews. Even the app’s free version is impressive in its coverage– giving the parent the ability to set rules, time limitations, and of course, block pornography and other inappropriate content. With the paid version, parents will also have SMS monitoring, social media controls, and per-app features. Norton Family Premier lets parents have control and access to an unlimited number of devices (perfect for large families) – as long as you pay an annual fee. The app lets parents monitor all their kids' online activities from either its revamped web portal or a standalone companion app. It can even track your child’s location. It gives ample protection, but some features can be disabled. This isn’t automatically a bad thing because it leads to a facet about parental controls that is even more important than an app’s features: parental behavior regarding child control. Some parents install the parental controls stealthily to spy on their kids (and maybe spouses?) but ultimately, that’s an untenable practice. What happens when your kids find out? What if they can disable it without you knowing? A better approach would be for parents to engage with children regarding parental controls and discuss the need for it. Make it a teachable moment – instead of using an iron hand, explain and convince why such measures are actually a good idea. Even better, when they begin pushing boundaries, use it to teach kids how to negotiate – that’s a skill they would definitely use when they’re older. Since parental control apps affect both parents and kids, there’s no reason why they both shouldn’t be involved in its set up and implementation. Parental controls and apps are great, but they’re no substitute to honest and open communication between parents and kids. Talk to your kids why visiting disagreeable sites, overusing their devices, and having unsafe online practices would be injurious to them. Talk about sensitive and important topics such as privacy vs protection and how trust goes both ways between kids and parents. A collaborative approach would ultimately be more fruitful, especially since there’s a huge chance that your kids would end up more tech savvy than you are. If you don’t want them to end up circumventing your efforts and outsmarting your apps, having them on board is the way to go.