The internet is practically unavoidable — even for children. From social media and online gaming with popular platforms like Fortnite and Roblox to everyday school activities and assignments, children are increasingly dependent on internet access.
While the internet offers incredible educational resources and opportunities for connection, it’s also one of the most potentially dangerous spaces a child can navigate, exposing them to risks such as graphic or mature content, cyberbullying, online predators, and even identity theft or credit card fraud. With all these factors at play, managing and protecting a child’s online presence has never been more important for parents.
If you want to help keep your child safe online and prevent these things from happening, you’ve come to the right place. This article explains how parental controls can help protect your child while they’re online, how parental control software works, and how to use it properly.
What Are Parental Controls?
In the olden days, parental controls were settings on your TV that restricted what type of programs your child could watch. While parental control settings are still available for TVs, they’re more commonly used on computers, gaming consoles, smartphones, smart TVs, and other devices with internet access.
The purpose of parental controls is to monitor and manage what your child can do and see while they’re online. While this used to only be available on a device-by-device basis, parental control software now can help protect all devices on a connected network. This means you can monitor, protect, and manage every phone, computer, TV, or console connected to your Wi-Fi, helping to ensure online safety for your child.
Why Are Parental Controls Important?
Contrary to what some people might think, parental controls aren’t a way for over-protective parents to control everything their child does and sees on the internet. Instead, they’re crucial tools for helping safeguarding kids from real online dangers. Today, when one in four children have smartphones by the age of 6, and 77% of parents feel their children are addicted to screens, the need for parental controls has become more important than ever.
Here are some of the top reasons parental controls are essential for online safety and helping preventing child identity theft in the modern digital age:
Protecting Children from Online Predators
According to the Child Crime and Prevention Center, there are more than 500,000 active online predators daily. These predators target children and teens through social media, gaming platforms, and other online channels. Parental controls allow you to monitor who your child is interacting with online and block unknown or suspicious contacts. By knowing who’s in their contact list or chat history, you can step in if you see anything concerning.
Preventing Screen Addiction and Mental Health Issues
Children today are spending more time than ever on their screens, which increases the risk of mental health challenges like depression. While the average person spends more than 11 hours interacting with screens daily, children who spend over seven hours on screens daily are more likely to develop depression. This makes regulating screen time critical for parents. Parental controls let you set daily screen time limits on devices, encouraging children to find balance and engage in other activities.
Restricting Access to Inappropriate Content
Children can easily come across explicit or violent content on the internet, sometimes even by accident. Parental controls can filter and block websites or apps with harmful or mature content, keeping your child’s internet experience age appropriate. This helps ensure they’re exposed to positive and constructive online content, fostering a safer browsing environment.
Encouraging Educational Use of the Internet
By restricting access to inappropriate sites, you can help steer your child toward educational resources and tools. Parental controls can be configured to limit access to certain websites and categories, ensuring that the internet serves as a positive learning tool rather than a potential source of harm.
Protecting Your Finances and Preventing Identity Theft
Parental controls help prevent unauthorized purchases by your child. Some children inadvertently make purchases on games or apps, which can lead to unexpected charges and, in worse cases, child identity theft. By managing app permissions and restricting access to credit card information, you can help protect your finances and your family’s personal information.
In short, parental controls can help give you peace of mind, knowing that the internet is a safer space for your children.
How Online Games Like Roblox Are Improving Parental Controls
As parents’ concern for online safety grows — especially in online gaming — some platforms are developing new integrated safety features. For example, Roblox, a popular online gaming platform, recently introduced enhanced parental controls that allow parents to manage their children’s activity by setting limits on online interactions, restricting access to mature content, and placing specific boundaries on in-game purchases.
Here are the key features of the new Roblox parental controls update:
- Parents can set specific screen time limits for their children.
- Direct messaging is restricted for users under 13.
- Parents can remotely monitor their children’s in-game activity.
- Parents can enable custom spending limits on in-game purchases.
Roblox also implemented new AI-driven moderation to monitor and filter inappropriate content across text, voice, and images in real time. These features aim to address safety concerns and equip parents with more tools to protect their children online.
If your child is an online gamer, check to see if their favorite games offer similar security features, or any at all. Some games may lack adequate parental controls, leaving children more exposed.
6 Bitdefender® Total Security Parental Controls Offered by IdentityIQ
Now that you have a better idea of the overall scope and purpose of parental controls, let’s look specifically at how parental controls in Bitdefender® Total Security offered by IdentityIQ work.
IdentityIQ is best known for its suite of identity theft protection features. On top of these outstanding features, they also provide advanced parental controls through Bitdefender® Total Security.
1. See What Applications Your Child Is Using
See all the apps that your child is using. Whether on their phone, computer, tablet, or another connected device, you can see every application and program your kid has downloaded and how often they use it.
Understanding what apps your kids are using can help you to better understand what they’re up to and if they’re in danger. This is especially true with apps you’ve never heard of because you can research the app and determine if it’s age appropriate.
2. Select Content Categories to Keep Away
On a more traditional level, you can adjust parental control settings to restrict specific online search categories and results. This is a great way to ensure your kid only sees age-appropriate content.
3. Access Phone Contacts
Are you worried your kid might be talking to strangers on social media, chat websites, social networks, or through text messages? If so, you’ll appreciate that you can see who your child has in their contacts list. That way, if they add someone new you’ll notice it and you can ask them about the person in question.
4. Track Their Location
Whether you’re worried about your kid sneaking out after dark or venturing somewhere they ought not to be, tracking your child’s location can offer peace of mind to parents.
For example, if your kid leaves the house, you can make sure they arrive safely at their destination. When they do, your child can let you know they’re safe through the “Safe Check-In” feature. This can help keep you from wondering if they’re safe.
5. Check How Much Time Your Child Spends on a Device
You can monitor your child’s screen time, whether on their phone, computer, or gaming console. As we said before, social media, phone, and gaming addiction is at an all-time high, and it’s in your child’s best interest to be protected from internet addiction.
In addition to seeing how much time your kid spends online, you can set up screen time limits if you think your kids spend too much time on their devices. Limiting screen time is a great way to help encourage your kids to spend time outdoors, increase their physical activity, and find other ways to spend their time.
6. Summary of Online Activity
Finally, parental controls are a great way to get the overall picture of what your kids are up to online. You’ll receive daily, weekly, and monthly summaries of their activities and real-time notifications if your children try to access blocked websites, platforms, or apps. You also get notified if your child does one of the following things:
- Leaves a “safe” space and goes to an “unsafe” or restricted location.
- Calls, texts, or emails an unknown or blocked contact or receives a call, text, or email from one.
- Attempts to remove or delete the parental control app from their device.
Bottom Line
From limiting time on social media platforms to restricting certain online services and search results, parental controls are important for kids of every age and maturity level.
If you want comprehensive parental control software, consider using Bitdefender® Total Security parental controls offered by IdentityIQ identity theft protection services. Doing so can help keep your kids safe online while eliminating the risk of identity theft and internet misuse.
Get started with IdentityIQ today, and protect your family’s future.