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- There are seemingly constant changes to the tech landscape.
- Regardless of how tech-savvy your kids are, it's important you get involved in their tech usage.
- Two parenting experts give tips on using parental controls and monitoring solutions effectively.
With a tech landscape that likely looks pretty different from when you were younger and simultaneously seems ever-evolving, figuring out how to understand how technology impacts your kids might seem like a big undertaking.
But it's extremely important to understand how your child uses technology because research shows it's a big part of a young person's life. Gallup's 2023 Familial and Adolescent Health Survey show's slightly more than half of US teens spend at least four hours on social media every day.
If you want to understand how your child uses technology and start implementing tools to make sure they stay safe but aren't sure where to start, two parenting experts shared some tips with Business Insider to help you get started.
Collaborate with your teen to create tech boundaries
You may face resistance when you start to monitor or restrict your kids' tech usage. But resistance or not, it's important you get involved. Letitia Barr, a parenting expert at Brainly, an education company, told Business Insider about the importance of increasing communication so that your child is not only more honest with you about tech but also about other areas of life.
"When you have conversations with your kids, they will be more honest with you. We don't want our kids to be sneaky, whether it's with technology or anything else, because it might be technology now, but it might be something else down the line that's far more serious," Barr said.
Barr told Business Insider that one method parents can use to facilitate impactful conversations with their children is to find collaborative methods.
"There's a site called The Smart Talk where you can create a family contract together, and it's something collaborative. I did it with my kids when they first got their phones in middle school. Not only was the contract talking to them about safety in general, but it also made me evaluate my own beliefs about technology," Barr said.
Titania Jordan, chief parent officer of Bark, a parental controls company, agreed, and said boundaries are important and something she often discusses with other parents.
"From birth to 17, you're their parent; from 18 until 80, you can be their friend. We need to stop worrying about our kids liking us and prioritize what's best for them," Jordan, who is also the author of "Parenting in a Tech World," said.
She explained that drawing firm lines without explaining why hasn't proven helpful for her. However, explaining why she's making certain rules and leveling with her son has had positive results. After all, she has worked to set boundaries for her own personal tech use. That understanding fuels her ability to parent with empathy.
"I can't tell you how many times I've said to my son, 'I get it; I am never far away from this thing, and I need to work on turning notifications off, not reaching for it at night, maybe charging it in a different room and setting time limits for myself on apps that I'm addicted to, like Instagram.' It's about being authentic, being vulnerable," she said.
Familiarize yourself with parental controls and monitoring solutions
Getting involved in your child's tech usage can take many different forms — some are paid-for apps or monitoring solutions, but some are free resources already at your fingertips.
"Parental controls include setting time limits on apps and devices, setting filters to filter out different types of content, or allowing access to certain apps, like maybe Pinterest, but not others, like Snapchat," Jordan said.
Parents can start by looking at the parental control options on their own devices.
"There are free time limits and filters that you can set. You just have to go to Google and type in the name of whatever device you have, plus 'parental controls,'" she continued.
Jordan told Business Insider that parents who want to use a monitoring solution with their child's tech should determine the level of monitoring they are seeking.
"There are companies that will look for basic keywords, like 'gun,' 'sex,' 'marijuana,' — the clear, obvious things — and it's based on keywords," she said. However, other monitoring solutions will utilize tools like AI to surface more advanced keywords some might miss, Jordan continued.
Stay informed about slang and other ways kids hide tech activity
Even with the most advanced parental controls or monitoring solutions, parents should know that their teens may still be able to circumvent the parameters they set.
"A tech-savvy kid could use a VPN to circumvent certain parental controls or go on Reddit and find threads for instructions on how to do certain things," Jordan said.
She told BI that even if parents search their child's phone, there are methods they can use to hide their activity. While monitoring solutions and parental controls can do a lot of the heavy lifting in keeping you informed, you should also be aware of tricks and slang your child may be using to get around prying eyes.
"Children will hide photos in the camera roll, or they'll download things called vault apps that'll look like a calculator, for example," Jordan said. These apps require a code to open to grant access to hidden media.
Jordan also told BI that teens can use seemingly innocent emojis with hidden meanings. For example, in the last few years, the school bus emoji has gained popularity in conversations about drugs. "They were talking about Xanax, because a Xanax bar is shaped like a school bus and yellow," Jordan said.
Jordan explained that besides Googling slang terms or emojis parents might have questions about, searching terms that seem out of place in their kids' conversations via Urban Dictionary could also be helpful.
Keep in mind that there's such a thing as being too involved
While it's important that parents actively participate, too much interference isn't good, either.
"If you're using the right parental controls and monitoring software and you have good parameters, you probably don't need to ask for their phone whenever they get home from school or look through every single text thread, every DM, their camera roll, or their hidden folder. There are levels that I would say can very quickly wade into the overbearing, not conducive to a healthy parent-child relationship," Jordan said.
Another way parents can avoid crossing boundaries is by letting them do some of the work.
"My best piece of advice is to ask your kids when they are talking about a social media app, homework tool, or new video game, to show you what they're talking about and make them the teacher, because kids love being the expert," Barr said.
Technology isn't going anywhere. But when you're involved in your child's tech usage, in whatever way makes sense for you, you have the unique opportunity to help them learn about an important resource while keeping them safe in the process.