Effective Strategies for Parents to Monitor Their Teen’s Digital Behavior
Read time: 4 minutes
Nowadays, the world is heavily influenced by digital assets and online platforms; these have become a significant part of our daily lives. The adoption of the technologies can be seen as a revolutionary that defines various innovative ways and efficient solutions for real-world problems.
The internet is the most common term used by millions of people for different purposes like stay in touch with friends via various social media, relaxing, gathering information, etc. As it provides global access and is open to all, you can’t ignore its presence worldwide. According to the survey, 45% of teens use the internet on a nearly constant basis. Hence, monitoring their internet activity is quite important for the parents as the internet includes limitless boundaries offered to the users. As a parent, you should set some barriers in internet access to ensure a safe online environment for their teens.
Research by Pew Research shows that 61% of parents monitor their teens’ websites. To build a sensible monitoring strategy, you need to understand the nuances and potential dangers of specific websites, apps, and platforms. Teens must be aware of the harmful effects of the internet from their parents to avoid future problems.
The parents should put down a delicate balance between ensuring their teen’s security and freedom to express themselves. The monitoring and pushing limits on the teenagers’ online activities is a crucial task that must be performed until they reach a certain level of maturity. The bad impacts of the internet on teens behavior can also be resolved by the internet itself. The below practices should be performed effectively to safely use the internet for your teens:
If you want to monitor your teen’s digital behavior, it is the most prominent step by which you can get information about their visited sites. As per the statistics, 61% of parents monitor their teen digital behavior by checking their websites on web history. If your teen is also involved in social media platforms, you can monitor them by checking their social media profile. As most teenagers are also using mobile technologies for communication purposes, you should check their phone call records or messages too.
This method is quite efficient for monitoring your teen’s digital behavior as it is capable of blocking or filtering the online activities of their teens. The report says that 39% of parents turn on parental controls for monitoring purposes. While using this method, the parent can also restrict the use of the teen’s cellphone or be capable of tracking their location.
The parents can also set restrictions on their internet use or limit the time to go online. According to the survey, 69% of parents of younger teens (ages 13-14) considered this an effective way for their teens’ safety. This figure is quite high than the parents of the 15-17 age group. The study shows that the parents of younger teen age groups are much more engaged in each of these activities than the older teen’s age groups.
You may take the additional step beyond monitoring your teen’s online activities by following their teen’s friends on social media. This practice is most common on Facebook; it is reported that 72% of parents and 71% of teenagers are Facebook users. The report also says that 44% of all parents are their teen’s friends. If we talk about Twitter, 9% of parents follow their teens on this platform, while 17% follow on other social networking platforms.
If the parent knows the password of their teen’s account, they can easily monetize and manage their online activity efficiently. As per the statistics, 48% of parents reported that they know the password of their teen’s account, while 35% of parents know the password of at least one account.
You can consider it as most efficient option to monitor teen digital behavior. You need to choose the best tool among the available options in the digital world. One such innovative tool is Kernel Computer Activity Monitor, an all-in-one solution for all your needs. This tool is capable of monitoring unlimited numbers of computers simultaneously. Also, you can specify the intervals to capture the screenshots. In addition, you can keep track of all internet activities, applications launched, email activities, passwords, etc. In short, this tool updates the user even a single key is pressed.
If we talk about its feature, it offers internet monitoring, unique tracking ability, enabled monitoring schedule, unified log recording, accessed applications report, invisible screenshots, etc. We recommend using its trial version first to understand its benefits clearly.
To ensure a safe environment for your teens, you must follow the sensible monitoring strategies above. Also, you should use the three beneficial strategies to monitor browsing habits – supervision, guidance, and non-intervention. It generally refers to being a good role model by talking to your teens about online safety. Most Importantly, encourage them to be responsible internet users.
