Parental Monitoring apps or Parental Control Apps are still under the radar of privacy arguments. Whether Parental Monitoring is right or not, more parents are worried about their kids in this smartphone world. There need the best parental control apps to limit kids’ Smartphone use. Parent control apps help to track online activities of kids and track children’s phone without them knowing with a bunch of tracking options.
These Kids phone tracking apps can monitor calls and text, keep track of the phone location and a lot of other features to monitor Social media apps and activities. Most of these apps can monitor calls and text that the kid’s phone receives and sent, some apps even keep track of the deleted messages, messages from popular messaging services such as WhatsApp, Kik, etc.
SecureTeen Parental Control
SecureTeen mainly concentrates on filtering all the cheesy content online providing your teen with only the good that the internet offers. This parental control app for iPhone and Android offers a stalker-free, cyber bullying-free, adult content-free, mature content-free online experience to your children. This iPhone Parental control app also helps parents to stay aware of their child’s location and remotely monitor their device.
That is not all that SecureTeen provides it gives parents some more extra control. Parents can set a schedule of their children’s device usage. Child’s online activity will be monitor using weblog history. It provides provision for monitoring call details, received and sent SMS/MMS and so on. SecureTeen app also helps to track the location of your offspring. This Kids Watch app uploads all the contacts saved on child’s device to your SecureTeen account. This contact list is using to match with phone numbers of text messages and calls. Furthermore, this app monitors the Facebook and Instagram activity and gets alerts for suspicious friends and posts.
Key Features: Control Over App Download | Content Blocking | App Shutdown | Location Tracking | Call & Text Monitoring | Contacts Upload | Schedule Time Limits | Download from Playstore | iTunes
Related: 7 Best iOS Business Card Scanner Apps for iPhone
MMGuardian Parent App
MGuardian app lets the parent monitor the texts, web, and app usage logs of their child’s phone remotely. Quick location of the device is offering the app, with a real-time view of the location on the map. Parents can opt to lock/unlock their child’s device with a simple button. Mature contents will filter out by using the web filter feature while controlling with MMGuardan Parent App.
The app offers some scheduling options also to limit the use of phones. Time limits setting for locking the phone available. So parents will set it for bedtime, school time or any other time they wish for. Location tracking scheduler is also available for scheduling with this Parent App. For instance, location tracking can be scheduled in such a way to keep track of the whereabouts of the child during home-school/school-home commute. The call block feature gives the parents the power to choose who their teen calls. The app control feature helping to block apps directly or app usage time limiting to any number of apps and games.
Key Features: Text &Â Call Monitoring | Location Service | Lock/Unlock Device | Schedule Time Limits | Download from Playstore | iTunes
Qustodio Parental Control
The settings set for a child profile is applicable for multiple devices with Qustodio Parental Control app. This parental control is capable of content filtering even in private browsing mode so that children would not be subjected to inappropriate content. The parents get the power to view the social activities of their children. How much internet time should children get, how long should they spend on a particular app and so on can be decided by parents. In addition to this parents can determine the time duration for device usage, after this duration of time the device will be locked.
The communications done by children can be kept in check by tracking SMS messages and calls. The whereabouts of children can be tracked by using the location tracking feature. For Android variant of the app, there is an additional feature such as a panic button. Using the panic button a child can alert the parents in case of emergencies.
Key Features: Content Filtering | Device Timer |Â Text &Â Call Monitoring | Panic Button |Â Download from Playstore |Â iTunes
Kids Zone Parental Controls
Kids Zone Parental Control Android app ensures that kids use only the child safe app parents pick. All you have to do is install the app and create a profile with customized functions for your kid, and this basically is a play area created for your kid in the device. We can create multiple profiles for each kid/type of apps. Make sure to activate the profile before handing over your device to a kid, then every activity that they do is confined to this play area. If the time limit activates, a countdown will display, notifying the kids how much time is remaining for them on the device.
This Parental app facilitates the provision for locking all device functions and apps, except for those which are approved by parents to use. The app can analyze apps and to recommend child proof apps. Thus parents have only to select from the recommendations. The app provides a feature to block purchases, to avoid accidental purchases. There is also an option to limit the screen time, that too with a time-out. The device will re-lock if it is tried to reboot and also the calls and text are blocked unless they are allowed in the first place.
Key Features: App Approval| Block Purchase | Ad Blocking | Screen Time Limiter | Relock on Reboot | Multiple Profiles | Quick Unlock | Download from Playstore
Also see:Â iPhone Guided Access: Get More Parental Control on iPhone or iPad
Kaspersky Safe Kids
As most parental control apps do Kaspersky Safe Kids also support content filtering. Apart from location tracking, this parental app supports safe area defining. Using this feature parent will define a safe area for their children and while the children stepping out of this area the parents will get alerts. This tracking over the communication in child’s device is not limiting only to calls and text but also include public Facebook activities (Android only). There is an option to set device usage timer. The app offers, to parents, psychologist advice on how to explain online safety to children.
Key Features: Content Filtering | Device Timer | Call & Text Monitoring | Location Tracking | Download from Playstore | iTunes
ShieldMyTeen Parental Control
ShieldMyTeen is a tool for web filtering and device monitoring. This app will block many inappropriate categories of inappropriate websites. This keeps our teen away from everything that is not meant for them. It can track the device location. Remote monitoring of text messages and calls is possible through this app. Apps installed on the device can be allowed/blocked. The app uses a smart system scan, which is based on category based. This helps to scan, recognize and classify the abundant amount of websites into categories that parents can allow/block on their kid’s devices.
Key Features: Web Filtering | Smart System Scan | Inappropriate Content Blocking | Location Tracking | Download from Playstore
Familoop Parental Control
Familoop is a parental control iPhone app, aims to bring the online image of the children to the parents. As part of this Familoop is capable of social network control, which can bring down matters such as bad influences on children, oversharing and online predators. The Familoop iPhone Parent app is able to automatically connect to all social network on a kid’s device, without any requirement of kid’s network account. Also, it can understand all the posts by the child whether it be on messengers, email services or websites. Not only Familoop can block inappropriate content but also can notify parents about any suspicious activity in real time. The app is capable of location tracking. Age-inappropriate apps and games will be bblockedusing this app. There is also an option to set device time.
Key Features: Content Blocking | Location Tracking | Device Timer |Download from iTunes
Parental Control Light
Parental Control Light app for Android controls over the time teen waste in front of smart devices. The primary objective of this company seems to be limiting the time spent on the same. Their tagline, Limit hours of your child, clarify this. The app tries to achieve its objective by limiting the use of apps, especially over an agreed schedule. Thus kids will only be able to use the apps for a period, which is set by their parents. This could improve a kid’s life in multiple ways. It can pave for an improved sleeping time, effective study time and so on.
Parent control apps help parents to keep track of whereabouts their child in physical as well as the cyber world. These tracking apps are improving day by day, thus making our teens more and more secure. There have been reported incidents of kids coming with tricks to get around parental control.
Key Features: Time Limiter | App Blocking | Download from Playstore
Best Parental Control Apps for iPhone and Android
When you talk about parental control apps features, web filtering is another common feature of kids phone watch apps. This parental monitoring apps can filter explicit content and other inappropriate contents on the web. some can even pre-set the filtering based on the age of the kid. In many states and locations, it is illegal for parents to monitor their children’s phone. The question arises whether it is justified to invade the privacy of children. The usage of Parental control apps is a matter of parent’s moral decision, though it is best to believe that privacy outshined by protection. Now let us look best parental monitoring App to Track Teens Online for Android and iPhone.
These monitoring apps can trace the location of the subject, while some can even monitor the speed at which they travel. These parenting apps can provide this information as a push notification to the parent’s phone, keeping them updated about their kid’s whereabouts. Most parent control apps work in a similar way irrespective of what device or platform they are on. These apps ask for the app to be installed on both the kid’s phone and the parent’s phone.
Parents have to make sure to think through about such possibilities and act accordingly, for starters use obscure passwords. Using a combination of multiple parental control apps is another suggestion. What if they factory reset the device!! Well, as we all know technology cannot solve everything, and the ultimate solution is the healthy parent-child interaction in person.
I think kidslox also should be in the list. Look here kidslox.com
Thank you for your suggestion. It looks good.
I like the Teensafe app but this app does have geographical restrictions. They work exclusively in the USA. Any best alternative app that works like the teensafe.
You have listed some good apps but i am surprised to see that FamilyTime parental control app is missing from that list. Few months ago That app helped a dad to save her daugher from sexual predator. It will also a great inclusion into your list.
Hi Aljo, great tips. Though my concern is that none of these solutions are ideal for the youngest of screen time users – those ages 2-7. They need a solution that helps them form a healthy relationship with technology from day one, and simple restrictions aren’t the answer. I’d like to share with you our solution, Ava. Ava is specifically designed to help the youngest of screen time users to form a healthy relationship with technology from day one thanks to innovative features like game designed-powered positive reinforcement. Feel free to contact me william {at} unclewilliam.org and learn more at screentimewithava.com Thanks in advance, William
Screen time limiter, I think, is must have feature, especially if parents can not always be near children.