The free tool is designed more to be a gatekeeper than a hall monitor. You don’t get much in the way of actually “monitoring” online use. On top of that, the features offered by Family Link are relatively linear. There is no way to monitor or manage applications or other web browsers on Windows or macOS. Yes, you can use Google’s parental monitoring tools on an iPhone but your only control for non-Chrome OS PCs comes in the form of the Chrome browser.
The problem with Family Link, like Apple’s Screen Time, is the fact that it isn’t truly cross-platform. I have used Family Link ever since my kids picked up their first Chromebook and it works much better than the supervised user platform that preceded it. If you live inside the Google or Apple ecosystems, you could probably default to the in-house options that offer a handful of tools for keeping your children safe online. So, how do you manage all of the online time while monitoring online activity, implementing downtime, filtering apps, all while teaching your kids to be responsible digital citizens? Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer but there are tools available that can aid you in your task and help you manage all of your devices. That’s not to mention the increased screen time for gaming, web browsing, and the plethora of messaging platforms that exploded during the COVID-19 era.
For many families, however, this is not the case.Īccording to a recent study, more than 50% of children age 11 have their own cell phone and online video consumption among teens and pre-teens has nearly doubled in the past four years. My children also do not have cell phones at this point so their screen time is limited to the television and their Chromebooks. That said, this solution only works if all of your devices exist in the same ecosystem. They can only visit sites that I allow and they can’t install applications unless I approve them. Part of that has to involve some form of accountability and that’s where online parental monitoring tools come into play.Īdmittedly, I do not drill down into the finer details of my kids’ web browsing time but I have their computers fairly well locked down.
While it is easy to fall into the trap of not wanting to lord over your kids like a digital dictator, the responsibility of teaching them good digital habits falls on us, the parents.
Being the father of two young children myself, there is a constant voice in the back of my mind that leaves me wondering if I’m doing enough to monitor my kids’ online activity. Even before the onset of a global pandemic, digital citizenship has become a dominant theme for parents wanting to keep their children safe and secure on the web. As the old saying goes, “ An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” and that adage has never rung so true when it comes to protecting your kids in this digital age in which we live.
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