Balancing Between Independent Exploration and Parental Control

With the spread of different digital technologies, the modern teen poses a unique parenting challenge to the 21st century parent. The use of technology poses challenges that need a delicate balancing act. With teens and tweens accessing smartphones and tablets at an early age, it is necessary to exercise caution to balance between control and allowing the kids to exercise independent tech exploration. In this post, our parental control experts at Qustodio will share out some of the trends and figures research is giving us regarding how parents are approaching this issue. 

According to a Pew Research Center survey of parents raising teenagers, the surveyors found that they have different ways of tracking what their teens do on the Net. It also established that they encourage their kids to utilize tech appropriately and responsibly. Keep on reading to discover more and know how and where you need to draw the line safely.

A Hands-on Dealing with Children

Regarding tracking kids’ digital activities, most of them adopt a hands-on approach towards monitoring what their children do:

• 61% confess to having checked the sites their kids interact with

• 60% have checked their teenagers’ Facebook or Twitter profiles

• 56% had befriended or followed their teens on various social media networks

• 48% had peeped into their teens’ phone call or SMS records

• 48% of them know their teenagers’ email passwords

Hands-on Methods for Monitoring Teens

However, despite above figures, so far less than half of all parents interviewed have used parental control tools. This is what the figures from the surveys tell us:

• 39% had used tech tools to block, filter, or track their teens’
• Internet engagements 16% use parental controls in restricting their teens’
• smartphone usage Problem Prevention 

Regarding talking to their underage kids matters relating to the prevention of smart gadget problems, over 90% of them have taken the lead. They take their time to show their children what right and appropriate online conduct is. Here are the figures:

• 94% had talked with their teenagers about appropriate online sharing
• 95% had talked to their kids about decent content they should view on the Net
• 95% talked to their teens about decent media interaction
• 92% talked to their kids about how they should behave towards other online users

Dealing With Misbehavior  Regarding how parents deal with technology abuse, most of them had taken tough punitive measures when they spotted abuse. The survey shows that:

• 16% use tech to track their kids’ smartphone locations
• 65% of them had confiscated teens’ smartphones or internet access as a way of punishing them

Imposing Limits

Concerning limits imposition, the research found out that over 55 % of the parents impose limits on how long or when kids should interact with the Net. Here are the trends and figures regarding how parents are approaching the balance between monitoring their kids’ tech explorations and parental control. What are you doing about this?