Parenting tweens and early teens is difficult and requires a nuanced approach because every kid matures differently. This is especially true for devices. As parents consider what’s right for their child, they may choose to read their kid’s texts when they’re first starting out with a phone. If your child has a phone and you want to read their texts, here are some things to keep in mind.
While there are plenty of solid reasons for 12-year-olds to have a phone, this age also needs the most guardrails, including close monitoring of their texts. At this age, you want to be more hands-on, reviewing who they’re texting and what the conversations are about.
Here are some tips for supervising your 12-year-old’s texts:
It’s a teenager’s job to push for freedom, and it’s a parent’s job to regulate that freedom so they can safely spread their wings. At this age, you may want to give them more independence and autonomy with their messaging if they’ve demonstrated their maturity and can follow family rules.
Here are some ways to strike a balance between texting privileges and rules:
The leap in maturity between 13 and 14 years old varies widely from kid to kid. Some kids may still need a level of close supervision. Here are some ways to decide how involved to be in your 14-year-old’s texts:
No matter how mature and responsible your child is, there are some topics you’ll want to monitor even through their late teens. Suicidal ideation, self harm, and drugs are top on that list.
But that doesn’t mean hovering. Reading every text may be an option when your child is younger, but they need some privacy as they grow older. Text message monitoring allows you to give your child autonomy and step in when anything potentially dangerous is detected.
Depending on your family’s values, some things you encounter in your child’s texts may be no big deal, such as moderate profanity or violence in the sports they follow. It’s okay to let some stuff go.
You know your child best, and every family has different ideas of what’s acceptable. Some monitoring apps allow you to customize what topics it scans for based on your priorities, so you’ll get fewer alerts for swear words but more alerts for potential dangers like self-harm and drugs.
There are three main ways to monitor your tween’s text messages, and they work best in conjunction with each other.
Parents should tailor their approach to reading their child’s texts based on their age, maturity, and temperament. Apps like BrightCanary are a great companion to other monitoring efforts, like regular check-ins and conversations about online safety.
If you’ve been monitoring your child’s phone since they were young, great job! But now they’re getting older, and they may want (and need) more freedom. Read on for tips on how to decide when to stop checking your child’s phone and how to support your teen online as they mature.
According to the American Psychological Association (APA), parents should monitor their children’s social media until at least age 15. But not all children mature at the same rate. It’s not like a magical switch gets flipped on their 15th birthday, suddenly turning them into a responsible, independent young person. The human brain actually continues developing until around age 25.
Some children need a parent’s support longer than their peers do. In fact, a majority of parents who responded to a PC Magazine survey said they believed parents should actively monitor their child’s tech use until age 18. So, it’s up to parents to make a judgment call based on their child.
Chronological age is different from age of maturity, so there’s no hard-and-fast rule on when your child will be ready for you to stop monitoring their phone. (Wouldn’t it be easier if there were?)
Here are some factors to help you decide:
Even if your child still needs you to actively monitor their phone, it’s also important to prepare them for adulthood. As they grow older and display more maturity, look at ways to increase their autonomy and privacy.
As your child matures and you become more hands-off with their phone, there are some issues you’ll want to continue checking in with them about. This includes asking about their mental health and any challenges they may face online.
Fortunately, you can reduce your direct involvement while staying supportive. Start by keeping communication open. With less monitoring from you, it’s more important than ever that your child knows they can come to you if they run into trouble online. Make it clear you’ll support them without judgment. Period.
Check-in regularly. Ask your child what’s going on in their life — including online. We recommend having online safety check-ins on a regular cadence that works for your family.
Finally, use a customizable monitoring app. BrightCanary allows you to give your child space while keeping an eye on the big stuff. You can monitor what they've recently typed, or you can just review the real-time concerning content alerts. After all, you may not feel the need to read all their texts, but you still want to know if your child encounters anything dangerous like drugs content or self-harm content.
Most children still need some level of parental monitoring beyond the age of 15. It’s also important for kids to have freedom and privacy as they get older so they can mature into adulthood. Parents of older teens should continue to check in with their child on major issues like mental health, while looking for ways to increase their autonomy.
You know that it’s a good idea to set rules around device use, like screen time limits and making sure your child is watching age-appropriate content. But should parents monitor their children’s phones? This question is a hot debate in parenting circles. It’s likely one you’ve asked yourself.
Forget for a moment about what your mom thread or the Reddit boards have to say. Instead, let’s dive into what the statistics say, what the research tells us, and what the experts recommend, so you can make an informed decision when it comes to your own child.
As more and more research emerges about the negative impacts of excessive phone use, experts now widely recommend supervising and limiting phone use for children.
For kids over the age of six, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) recommends that parents limit screen-based activities for their children and instead encourage them to form healthy, offline habits.
When it comes to explicit advice about monitoring, the American Psychological Association (APA) suggests that parents should monitor social media accounts for all kids under 15.
There aren’t strict recommendations about how much screen time kids should get each day, which makes regular monitoring even more important. Dr. Jenny Radesky, who researches how kids use media and technology, said in an interview with Today that parents should "focus on quality rather than the overall amount of time … The more important question is, what is the activity the child is doing?"
It’s clear that experts believe parents should monitor their children’s phones. But why have so many of them taken that stance in recent years?
For one thing, the data show a steep increase in anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide among adolescents in recent years, hitting Gen Z the hardest. Experts have proposed a connection between this alarming trend and the corresponding rise in smartphones and social media.
Research further supports those claims. For example, studies have shown that increased social media use is a reliable predictor of worse sleep, poor body image, low self-esteem, and increased symptoms of depression among adolescents. The U.S. Surgeon General recently weighed in, warning that social media is contributing to the youth mental health crisis.
And the impacts of phone use by adolescents extends beyond their childhood. This global study of over 27,000 young adults found a link between early phone use and worse mental health outcomes in adulthood.
While this all might sound alarming, research also offers hope. An analysis of existing research, published in the International Journal of Behavioral Development, found that parental monitoring can lower depressive symptoms and lead to fewer risky behaviors.
Given the clear and compelling reasons parents should supervise their kids on their devices, let’s dive into how that can be accomplished. Here are specific actions you can take to keep your child safe and healthy on their phone:
Experts recommend parents monitor their children’s phone use and those recommendations are born out by the research. Parents should take steps to keep their children safe and healthy on their phones, including regular check-ins and use of monitoring apps.
The term “iPad kid” is all over TikTok right now, thanks in part to the viral rants of Gen Z against what they see as a troubling trend in the generation below them. But what is an iPad Kid? Should parents of young children be worried? And what should you do if you suspect you’re raising an iPad kid?
The term “iPad kid” refers to certain Gen Alpha children (born since 2010) who seem constantly glued to their tablets, want technological stimulation at all times, and become upset when their devices are taken away.
The term also includes observations about how easy access to technology can impact parenting choices. Specifically, when parents routinely rely on devices to ease or avoid difficult moments, they sacrifice opportunities for their child to develop vital skills — like learning how to entertain themselves when they’re bored or behave appropriately in social situations.
Experts point to negative consequences of excessive screen time and overreliance on technology for kids, including tablets and iPads. Some of the risks include:
We’ve all seen the kid watching an iPad at a restaurant while their parents enjoy a meal.
While it’s totally understandable that overwhelmed and under-supported parents would want a bite in peace, there’s a downside to this convenience: it robs children of the chance to learn etiquette and proper behavior in public.
Observing and participating in dinner table conversation is also an important way that kids develop interpersonal skills, which they miss if they’re constantly on a device during social hour.
Additionally, when screens are regularly used to distract kids in situations that require them to wait, they may not develop basic skills such as patience and the ability to manage their frustrations.
When parents hand their child a device the minute they start to get upset, the child misses a chance to develop important coping skills like self-soothing and paying attention to their emotions. Instead, they learn to use screens to manage difficult feelings.
Boredom helps kids develop important skills, chiefly creativity. If they turn to screens the minute they feel an inkling of boredom, they miss the chance to find creative ways to occupy themselves.
For kids under three, too much time spent in the two-dimensional world of devices can lead to less developed fine motor skills and a lack of visual spatial awareness. Motor development and perceptual skills are developmentally important for kids, and they develop, in part, by interacting with the real world — not screens.
Eye doctors have noted an uptick in short sightedness among children, citing increased screen time as a major contributing factor.
If you’re concerned your child might be too dependent on a device, here are some signs to watch for:
Unrestricted screen time is the biggest risk with iPad kids. As a rule of thumb, for children under 5 years old, experts recommend limiting non-educational screen time to about 1 hour per weekday and 3 hours per day on weekends.
For kids age 6 and older, you'll want to encourage healthy habits and limit screen time in a way that works for your family. It might be tempting to issue an outright screen ban. But this can backfire and cause kids to use devices in secret, reducing the chance they’ll reach out to you for help if they encounter any problems online.
Banning screens entirely also means they miss out on the positive impacts of technology, like learning about new interests and talking to friends. It also limits your ability to teach them how to use devices responsibly — a necessary skill in our modern world.
Instead, rebalance your family’s relationship with devices using these tips:
The term “iPad kid” refers to a troubling trend of kids who are over-reliant on tablets. Parents should be mindful of their child’s device use and take steps to help them develop healthier screen time habits.
Parenting in the digital age is hard. When to let your child have their first phone, setting screen time limits, and deciding whether to monitor your kid’s device are among the difficult choices parents must make. But how do you navigate co-parenting and cell phones?
It’s common for parents to disagree on these issues, but separation or divorce adds even more complexity to maneuver. In fact, family law experts cite decisions about the use of devices as one of the most significant sources of conflict during divorce.
Hard as it may be, it’s vital that parents get on the same page about digital parenting rules. Read on for tips on negotiating the tricky waters of co-parenting and cell phone rules.
Children need boundaries. Not only do they help keep kids safe (and help them feel safe), but they’re also an important part of development. Boundaries help children develop self-discipline and learn to set their own limits.
When it comes to boundaries, technology is no exception. From safety issues like online predators to the negative consequences of too much tech, the evidence is clear that children need rules in the digital world.
You and your co-parent may not see eye-to-eye on things like how much screen time is okay for your child or what apps they’re allowed to download. But it’s important to find a middle ground, rather than arguing or talking behind each other’s back.
Research consistently points to the fact that parental conflict negatively affects children. Although conflict is normal and inevitable, how you fight matters. The biggest concern when it comes to children is destructive and unresolved conflicts between parents. These can contribute to a child’s emotional insecurity, which may lead to difficulties managing their emotions and behavior, mental health problems, and social and academic struggles.
If you’re actively going through a divorce or separation with your co-parent, this major transition can further overwhelm your child.
Children may not admit to liking boundaries, but they do need them; they make a child feel secure. On the other hand, unclear and inconsistent boundaries can set the stage for power struggles and conflict with your child. Therefore, it’s important to do everything you can to present a civil, united front with your co-parent.
Here are some tips on how to collaborate with your co-parent to create digital boundaries for your child:
It’s important to present a united front to your child, both while you’re hashing out digital rules and after you’ve come to an agreement that you and your co-parent can both live with.
Here are some tips:
Arguments between parents are adult issues. Keep your kid out of it, and resist the urge to badmouth your co-parent around your child. Not only is it emotionally harmful for your child to feel like they have to act as the go-between in parental conflict, but it’s also difficult to convince them to follow the rules if they know you disagreed when setting them in the first place.
It’s important to implement the new boundaries clearly and enforce them consistently. Consider putting your new rules in writing. Documenting expectations about digital behavior helps minimize future conflict and creates accountability for everyone involved. Including the rules, expectations, and consequences in a digital device contract that you, your co-parent, and your child regularly review and discuss.
Using a monitoring app ensures you and your co-parent operate with the same set of facts about your child’s online behavior, which can minimize conflict when enforcing digital rules. BrightCanary helps you supervise your child’s text messages on Apple devices, plus their activity on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Google.
With BrightCanary, you can share a subscription with your co-parent if you have Apple Family Sharing enabled in your iCloud settings. You’ll both need to create separate BrightCanary accounts and log into the platforms you wish to monitor for your child. Once set up, you can review their online activity and receive alerts for any concerning content directly from your phones.
Divorce and separation add to the difficulty of setting and enforcing digital parenting rules. But it’s important that co-parents align on tech boundaries and present a united front to their child.
You set limits with Apple Screen Time, but you have a suspicion that it’s not working the way it should. Now, you’re wondering, “Can my child turn off Screen Time?” If you’re frustrated that your child keeps finding a way around their screen time limits, you’re not alone. Our digital natives are good at staying a step ahead of us when it comes to tech. Read on to learn some common ways kids turn off Screen Time and what parents can do about it.
Here are some ways your child might try to work around their device restrictions:
You can set a passcode so your child can’t easily get past their Screen Time limits, but passcodes aren’t foolproof. Your child can learn the passcode by looking over your shoulder, screen recording to capture you entering the code, or old-fashioned deduction skills.
Even if you’ve restricted certain messaging apps, kids can still find ways to communicate with friends after-hours. By creating a shared note with a friend, anything either of them types in the note is visible to the other person.
Plus, if your kid takes a screenshot (of anything) and shares it, the screenshot will be sent as a text. Your kid can add a message to it, even if they’ve reached their limit on messages.
When kids reach their limit, they can hit Ask For More Time and then select One More Minute to eek out a little extra time.
Kids can still use Siri to send messages after their limit.
Deleting and then reinstalling an app removes any limitations on it.
Using the screen-recording tool allows kids to record a YouTube video to watch later from their Photo album.
If you set Screen Time limits during certain hours, it’s common for kids to adjust the time zone on their device to get around limits.
If you’ve blocked YouTube during Downtime but not messages, your child can still open any videos that are sent to them via text.
First, here’s a refresher on how to use iPhone parental controls and ways to troubleshoot if Screen Time isn’t working. These tips can help prevent the most common ways kids use to turn off Screen Time:
If a kid’s crafty enough, they’ll figure out a way around your restrictions. That’s why it’s important to couple them with other measures.
First, lean on your relationship. Let your child know you expect to be able to trust them to respect your rules and boundaries. Create a digital device contract and be clear about any consequences if they go around your limits.
Talk to your child about why it’s important to limit their screen time — especially if they’re having trouble sleeping. Stay informed about your child’s online activity through regular communication and online safety check-ins.
Finally, use a reliable monitoring app alongside Apple Screen Time. BrightCanary fills in the gaps Apple leaves behind, allowing you to monitor all the apps your child uses — including texts, Google and YouTube activity, and social media. Think of it as another tool in your parental monitoring toolkit. Download BrightCanary on the App Store today and try it for free.
Kids are savvy and can find ways around screen time limits. Parents should take steps to prevent their kids from hacking their limits, but also make other efforts such as staying engaged in their child’s online activity.
Text messaging opens your child up to risks such as cyberbullying, sexting, and toxic group chats. But texting also brings plenty of positives, like increased connection with friends and the ability to stay in contact with you when you’re not with them. As you get ready to hand your child their new device, it’s useful to create a family texting contract with expectations on how they will behave with their new privileges.
A family texting contract is an agreement between parents and children that establishes rules and expectations for text messaging. For instance, a rule might require your child to reply to your texts promptly when they're out of the house.
While some parents might incorporate these rules into a broader digital device contract — which covers general device use, such as screen time limits and prohibited locations for phone use — a family texting contract specifically targets text messaging. Choose the option that best suits your family's needs.
When it comes to setting rules, the approach matters. Waiting to angrily impose a rule when you’re fed up with a behavior is less likely to be successful than if you set thoughtful expectations from the start and adjust as needed over time. It’s worth taking the time to create your family’s texting rules before your child starts texting. But if that ship has already sailed, it’s never too late to set new boundaries — just be prepared for an adjustment period as your child gets used to the new law of the land.
Here are some things to consider as you decide what texting boundaries to set:
You have the final say, but the more input your child has in deciding what goes on the family texting contract, the more buy in you’ll get. They also might surprise you with what they come up with. Explain why you think it’s important to set texting guidelines and ask them what they think should be included.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
Once you’ve decided your new texting rules, it’s time to put them in place. Here are some tips:
Allowing your child to start texting is a big step. By thoughtfully implementing guidelines and behavior expectations, you will help them establish a healthy relationship to texting.
Among Us is a mega popular online game, at one point even beating out Roblox to become the most-downloaded mobile game on both Android and iOS. Although its popularity has waned slightly since then, it remains a fan favorite. But if your child is asking to play the game, you may be wondering, “Is Among Us safe for kids?” That’s why we’ve compiled this handy guide to answer that question for you.
Among Us is a space-themed, multiplayer online strategy game. The players are colorful, bulbous cartoon astronauts on a mission. Players take on the role of either a crewmate whose mandate is to perform tasks related to the mission or an imposter whose sole purpose is to sabotage the mission and destroy the crew.
The game is best for kids ages 10 and older due to the violent premise of the game and the open chat feature, although supervised play may be okay for slightly younger children. Both the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) and Common Sense Media give Among Us an age rating of 10+.
Because there’s no dialogue, parents don’t need to worry about inappropriate language in the game itself. However, because there is a chat feature, kids may be exposed to inappropriate language from other players in comments or character names. However, you can use parental controls to filter out inappropriate chat content, and usernames are somewhat moderated.
There is no sex or nudity in Among Us. In fact, the players never even take off those adorable little space suits.
The entire goal of the imposters in the game is to murder crew members or sabotage equipment in order to kill them. The murders in particular are often quite violent, such as snapping necks or stabbing. And there’s no pretending the crewmates faced any other fate but death, considering the bodies are left behind and ghosts of killed players can be found floating around. While the actions are rather gory, no blood is shown, and the cartoonish nature of the game does temper the impact of the violence.
The game does have parental controls, but only for children under the age of 13. Parents can access this feature through the Inner Sloth Parental Portal. Here are the notable options that parents can control:
BrightCanary can monitor the messages your child sends on Among Us. The app uses advanced technology to analyze what they send and alerts you in real-time when they encounter something concerning. Even better, you can use BrightCanary to monitor Snapchat, Discord, Roblox, and any other app they use on Apple devices.
Because of the violent premise of the game and the murders acted out on screen, Among Us may be scary for particularly sensitive kids. However, it’s not intended to be a horror game, the characters are not particularly humanlike, and the violence is cartoonish, all of which minimize the fear-factor.
Despite the violent premise and open chat feature, Among Us remains relatively safe for children over the age of 10. Parents should utilize the parental control features for additional peace of mind and monitor their child's activity with a child safety app like BrightCanary.
Wondering how to talk to your child about online safety? One of the most effective methods for keeping your child safe online is to have regular conversations about their internet activity and what they encounter. This means looking at and talking about everything from the accounts they follow to the videos they watch to the messages they send and receive. Read on to learn the ins and outs of online safety check-ins and how to implement them for your family.
Online safety check-ins are a designated time set aside to spend with your child where you discuss their online activity. Here are some suggestions of what to focus on during your check-ins:
Online predators, cyberbullies, and scammers are just a few of the dangers children face online. Because of the potential pitfalls, experts increasingly recommend parents monitor kids online.
In addition to following your child’s social media accounts and using a monitoring service, conversations about online safety are one of the best ways parents can stay on top of what their kids are up to online.
The most effective safety check-ins happen when parents are prepared. Here are some tips for making these conversations work for you:
After a few go-arounds, your safety check-ins will start to feel pretty routine. But starting can be daunting. Here are some conversation-starters to get you going:
A growing body of experts recommend parents monitor their children online. Regular online safety check-ins are one of the best things you can do to keep your child safe online.
Restricting access to a child’s phone has become a go-to punishment for many families. But it’s not always the most appropriate or effective consequence. It’s wise to first consider the pros and cons of taking your child’s phone away — here’s what parents should know.
Every situation is different, and nobody knows your child as well as you. But what does taking away a child's phone do? Before you decide, it’s important to understand some broader points about the role they play in the kids’ lives.
Virtual communication can be positive and developmentally important. Like it or not, phones are how modern teens communicate with their friends, and communication is necessary for development. Taking away your child’s phone is equivalent to unplugging the television and the stereo, banning games, cutting off their contact with friends, and grounding them — all in one fell swoop. If you do take away their phone, know that you’re imposing a serious consequence.
Social media has replaced spaces like malls and movie theaters for unstructured socialization with peers. That time is valuable for trying on new identities, forming independent relationships, and figuring out who they are as people.
Some online behavior, like slang or swearing, might seem inappropriate at first glance, but are in fact developmentally appropriate. If your first instinct is to take your child’s phone away because of their online behavior, take a step back and consider if the punishment fits the crime.
As parents in the digital age, our job is to teach our kids how to have healthy relationships with technology, so we must tread carefully when it comes to phone privileges — both granting them and taking them away.
While caution is advised, there are some situations in which taking away your child’s phone may be called for.
If you do decide to take away your child’s phone, it’s important to understand the potential ramifications.
If you decide against taking away your child’s phone as a consequence, that doesn’t mean you’re without options. Here are some alternatives:
Rather than taking away your child’s phone, a more effective approach is to use targeted restrictions, practice open communication, and monitor their online behavior.
