If you’re a parent, you know how important it is to encourage your kids’ independence, as well as make sure they stay safe. How do you balance those things in the age of technology?
If you need more information about how to keep track of your child’s phone, you’ve come to the right place. With these tips and tricks, you may be able to keep your kids a little safer while still extending them the independence they need to grow and build confidence.
To help make sure your child is being safe with their phone:
- Talk to them about it
- Make having a phone contingent on being responsible
- Openly check unknown numbers they’re calling or texting
Open a Discussion
The most important thing to do is to open a discussion with your kids. Not just set up immutable rules. After all, you’re trying to raise kids who will eventually be able to grow and thrive on their own, not kids who only know how to obey the rule book you’ve set up.
This is especially true when it comes to kids who are a bit older. Having a thoughtful adult conversation is an important part of creating agreeable phone restrictions. And make sure you frame this conversation as a genuine discussion. This should not just be a veiled attempt to retain control of your child’s phone.
If you just give your child a phone and you want to set up this communication, do both things at the same time. That way, you won’t spring a new set of restrictions on your child without giving advanced notice. This will create a better dynamic between the two of you that can really make the conversation move more smoothly.
From there, you can explain your conditions for having a phone.
Give Phones to Responsible Kids
A great rule of thumb is to only give phones to kids who can be responsible with those phones. You may even tailor the type of phone to your kid’s needs if that child isn’t yet responsible enough for a smart phone with all the bells and whistles.
For example, you may want to give an old-school flip phone to a kid who needs to stay in contact with you while they’re at school. They can do so without getting into any trouble online. This could make it easier to keep your kids away from online predators who might otherwise harm them.
At some point, though, you should be able to mostly trust your kid with a phone. After all, in the real world, your child won’t have a parent available at all times to make sure nothing bad happens. The age at which you can fully trust your child with a smart phone varies depending on the child. But you should remain open to the possibility of offering phone access with few or no strings attached at some point.
Check Unknown Numbers on Your Child’s Phone
One good way to make sure your child remains safe while still providing them plenty of independence? Checking the unknown phone numbers with which your child communicates.
Openly make an agreement with your child to periodically check those phone numbers. That can give you the peace of mind of knowing to whom your kid is talking to. And it still provides them a measure of independence since you won’t see the full communication logs.
Interested in verifying the identity behind the phone numbers your child is texting and calling? Just perform a reverse phone lookup* to try and get more information on a phone number. This includes more information about who owns the number in question.
With that information, you can make more sure that your child is interacting with people you know and/or approve of. And with this phone search tool, you can maintain a verification structure to help keep both yourself and your child safe.
Conclusion
Obviously, it’s not always easy to come up with a plan for keeping your kids safe. You probably want to make sure your kids stay safe at all times. But you also have to relinquish your hold a little bit to let your kids learn and grow from their mistakes.
Open communication and online lookup tools can help you to loosen that hold without giving up the reins entirely.
* PeopleFinders data is available only for adults, 18 years or older. In this instance, you should assume that any phone number data related to other children your child contacts is actually associated with their parents.
Image attribution: fizkes – stock.adobe.com
