10 Best Parental Monitoring
Updated on: September 2023
Best Parental Monitoring in 2023
WebWatcher Parent App
HAWK Monitoring Parental Control
- Using the HAWK Monitoring application, you can monitor the following:
- ✔️ [FREE!] Call logs history: Information on incoming and outgoing calls, even if there was no answer, and the detailed information on each call, such as the time the call was started, the phone number from which and to which the call was performed, its sender and recipient (if it is recorded in the device address book), its type (incoming, outgoing, etc.), and the duration of the call.
- ✔️ SMS activity on the device: All incoming and outgoing messages, draft messages, which have not been sent yet, messages awaiting sending, messages whose sending failed, the sender of the message, the time the message was received, sent, or created, its type (draft, sent, etc.), and the contents of the actual message.
- ✔️ Multi-media messages: Incoming and outgoing messages, draft messages, which have not been sent yet, messages awaiting sending, and messages whose sending failed. You can download and view the files sent in a message, as well as the sender of the message, the time the message was received, sent, or created, its subject, its type (sent, draft, etc.), and text sent along with the file.
- ✔️ GPS information: After enabling GPS tracking on the device, you can view the history of its movement, information on location, speed of the device at the certain moment of time, as well as download and view the GPS history data on the actual map.
- ✔️ Web history from the default browsers installed on the device.
- Premium Edition
- ✔️ Risk Content Monitoring from illicit images that might be downloaded to the device to images of guns and drugs, you are alerted to any potential risks.
- Call logs information is always provided for free
Amazon FreeTime for Fire TV
- FreeTime offers a kid-friendly environment for kids to explore and watch age-appropriate content
- Share eligible content you’ve purchased or downloaded from Amazon to your child's profile
- Parents can review all activity through Amazon Parent Dashboard and also manage parental controls, including time limits, bed time, and age filters
- The FreeTime Unlimited subscription gives even more kid-friendly Movies and TV Shows on Fire TV and also includes includes age-appropriate books, Audible books, Alexa Skills, videos, educational apps, and games for use on other compatible devices.
- FreeTime and FreeTime Unlimited are available on Fire tablets, compatible iOS and Android devices, and select Echo and Fire TV devices.
Qustodio Parental Control
- With the Qustodio app you get the following:
- – Web monitoring and blocking
- – Application monitoring and blocking (Premium)
- – Access time limits and quotas
Truple - Screenshot Accountability
- Review screen time & app usage
- Screenshots immediately captured if a "bad" website or app is used
- Screenshots captured every 30 seconds to 5 minutes on average (configurable)
- Screenshots risk ratings so you can easily view the most concerning screenshots
- View screenshots in real time
- (Optional) Blur screenshots (with 5 different level settings) to protect accountability partners from graphic details
- Secure--all communication is done over HTTPS and screenshots are encrypted with 256 bit AES
- Advanced tamper detection, including incognito/private browser, safe mode and more.
Mobicip Screen Time & Parental Control App
- filter internet, block websites on Safari, Chrome and other web browsers
- supervise videos watched, social media usage and browsing history
- set daily/weekly screen time schedules for distraction-free homework time and bedtime
- lock devices instantly for device-free family time or dinnertime
- locate kids instantly
- review access requests from kids (for restricted apps & websites)
- block apps, block games, block social media & block internet
- monitor kids phone & track online activity
- invite co-parent admins
- remotely monitor all family devices, 24x7, on-the-go
Net Nanny for Android
- Filters 18 categories; add your own custom categories
- Age-appropriate user settings for child, pre-teen, teen and adult
- Real-time content analysis and categorization
- Application Management - Manage which apps your child is allowed to run
- Time Controls - Manage when and for how long your child can browse the Internet
- Profanity masking - hide inappropriate words on the page
- Web-based Administrator Console (www.admin.netnanny.com)
- Custom whitelist/blacklist of URLs
- View summary report of activity on the console
- Weekly report showing users' activity emailed to the Administrator
Location Tracker for Parents
- Location Tracker for Parents is designed for parental monitoring.
- You can use the app for FREE.
- There are no ADS.
- Minimum permissions to run.
- Optimized battery consumption.
- Accurate and fast GPS location on your private map.
- You can customize how the app works according to your needs via application settings.
- Works as always on or scheduled which you set via application settings.
- Create regions to track in and out actions of your kids to these regions.
Little Smart Planet Pro
- -Educational Games
- -Games based on Mathematics, Spanish Language, and English Language Learning for children between the ages of 6 and 12
- -Educational games where one learns by playing
- -Special platform for individualised monitoring and follow-up
Remote Commands
- Play alarm sound
- Play notification sound
- Record sound
- Get the current location
- Read SMS and Call logs
How Much Schoolwork Monitoring by Parents is Too Much?
Parental monitoring of children's schoolwork may serve the current needs of schools and teachers but is not in a child's best interest.
The trend among our local schools is to treat homework monitoring as a parental responsibility as much as, if not rather than, a student responsibility. One of my daughters came home from third grade telling me that her teacher told her that she had to sit down with a parent for one hour each night to do homework. This was required, she reported. She was not allowed to do homework on her own. My response was to inform the teacher that I was not going to sit with my children and do their homework with them because that approach runs counter to my parenting philosophy. I believe that children must be responsible for doing their homework and for dealing with the consequences if they fail to live up to the responsibility.
I will ask my children if they have homework. I will remind my children to do their homework. I will answer questions if they are confused about their homework. Beyond that, homework is their responsibility and has been throughout their school years.
As my children hit middle and high school, EDLINE became a popular tool. EDLINE is an online grade tracking site. Teachers post the results of each test or graded homework assignment in one section of EDLINE and post assignments in another. Parents and students are given passwords to access their own child's grade and assignment data. Teachers, even of high schoolers, encourage parents to check EDLINE to monitor their children's assignment completion and see their children's grades throughout the marking period.
What do I think of EDLINE? It's useful insofar as kids may forget what assignments are due or be confused as to whether make-ups are allowed. As a parental monitoring tool, I oppose the use of EDLINE. I don't need to know every classroom and homework assignment my children are given, nor do I need to track whether and when they are done. That is someone's responsibility, alright, but the someone is not me.
What I have observed among my children's classmates is that parental expectations when it comes to homework are often self-fulfilling prophecies. The parent who professes she or he "has to check" because the child "won't do homework without prodding," produces a child who resists doing homework. Parents anxious about their children always maintaining superior academic standing frequently wind up with children who are either unhappy perfectionists or who rebel by not living up to their potential. Encouraging children to always do their best but allowing them some freedom to explore what happens when they don't produces far more desirable results in my experience.
Is the parent who feels compelled to monitor his child's every academic step a variant of the helicopter parent? It seems sometimes to be the case. But schools, for their own ends, do their share to produce parents who monitor children's homework. Schools today are judged by children's performance. Teacher pay is being linked to performance with increasing frequency. Performance is measured by rote regurgitation of facts, not creative thinking. The latter would involve judgment, and standardized measurement is the antithesis of judgment. So it is in teachers' and schools' interest to push parents to push students to do schoolwork for short-term gain regardless of the life lessons lost by giving a child leeway to fail on occasion and recover from the experience.
