If you intend to monitor your children’s device activity in modern times, you need a parental control service that works well on mobile platforms as well as on desktop. Kids can do all kinds of mischief on their phone (or tablet), either intentionally or unintentionally. Maybe they spend too much time each day staring at screens or using age-appropriate sites and apps. After all, a good parental control app can restore your sense of control and help you keep an eye out for anything that could harm them.
Be sure to have an open and ongoing conversation with your kids about the importance of responsible device use, so they don’t immediately plan to get rid of any app you installed or find some smart solution. Check out our article on what parents of connected kids need to know if you don’t know where to start.
How to Monitor Your Child’s Mobile Device
Parental control apps can help you maintain control in a variety of ways. Some of the most common types of monitoring include web content filtering, app blocking, time management, and location tracking. We dive into more detail about the top features below. Keep in mind that some of the products we highlight are mobile-only solutions, meaning they can’t monitor your child’s activity on a Mac or PC. If this platform is your biggest concern, be sure to check out our roundup of the best parental control software.
Most parental control services work the same way. You install a monitoring app on each device that you want to monitor and manage settings and restrictions from either a web desktop or parent-focused mobile app. Changes you make on any device take effect immediately. We appreciate a service that offers flexible device management.
Pricing and Platform
Most parental control apps require you to pay an annual subscription based on the number of devices you monitor. Prices range from $10 to $30 for monitoring one or two devices and go up to over $100 in some cases if you want 10 or more licenses. Circle Home Plus requires hardware and, ultimately, a premium subscription to get its full capabilities. That said, there are some exceptions. Some services, such as Locategy, operate on a freemium model, although with some limitations that don’t apply to the premium edition. Others, such as Kaspersky Safe Kids and Norton Family, do not limit the number of devices you can monitor.
Parental control software tends to be more robust on Android than on iOS, as Apple locks down app permissions and device access. Most parental control apps for iPhone require you to install a mobile device management (MDM) profiles for all features (especially those related to app management and time constraints) to function properly.
To monitor iOS devices, consider using Apple’s Screen Time tool, which rivals paid offerings from standalone competitors. Apple’s built-in (and free) solution is account-based, meaning it tracks data across all of their child’s Apple devices. Apple has included a good range of app blocking and web filtering options within the Restrictions section of its main settings app. Microsoft (Family Safety) and Google (Family Link) also offer first-party parental management solutions, which we cover in more detail in our guide on how to manage children’s screen time. We also have a feature on how to manage parental control settings on each game console.
Web Filtering
A distinctive feature of the parental control app is its ability to prevent children from accessing inappropriate or harmful websites. Many applications bundle proprietary browsers that make it easier for the service to manage, track, and control browsing activity. This makes more sense than trying to reverse support for every possible mobile browser. As such, most of these apps instruct you to block every other browser or restrict your child from installing other apps altogether.
Some parental control utilities do not force your child to use a proprietary browser. Instead, they leverage VPN technology, running an internet connection through a local app to enable content filtering. You will see a VPN icon when the utility is active. The presence of this icon does not mean the child’s connection is secured by a full-scale virtual private network, or that the device’s IP address is hidden.
Most of these browsers operate in a similar way because they block access to websites that fall into the prohibited category, including all of the biggest offenders, such as file sharing, gambling, pornography, and violence. The best examples have no trouble understanding it HTTPS-encrypted traffic and block access to anonymous proxies. Some apps, like Net Nanny, let you create custom web filtering categories, and most let you add custom rules for custom domains. Others can lock Safe Search settings and block profanity. The quality of web history reporting also varies from service to service.
Monitoring Apps, Messaging and Time Limits
One area where most mobile parental control solutions excel is their ability to prevent children from using certain apps. This can be useful for parents who want to prevent their children from using social media apps, messaging services that are difficult to monitor, or browsers that get around defined web filters. However, it can be difficult to keep track of every new app your child installs. Even better are those services, like Boomerang, which automatically block new apps your child installs until you explicitly consent to them. Mobicip gives you the option to enter only the apps you want your child to use.
App blocking works differently on iOS. You can block access to system apps like Safari, Camera, and Siri, if you wish. You can also disable the iTunes Store and App Store and disallow in-app purchases. Some parental control apps can even completely remove app icons from the home screen, making it impossible for your child to access them.
One thing you can’t do with most parental control apps is monitor encrypted calls or SMS, MMS, and messages. You can block secure messaging apps, but Boomerang and Qustodio were the only options other than Apple’s ScreenTime function we tested that let you monitor SMS messages and call data. This capability is only for Android devices and is not included in the version of the app on the Google Play store; instead, you have to sideload the custom version of the app.
The time limit is another key feature of the parental control app. Some services, such as Norton Family and Locategy, let you define how many total hours (or minutes) a day your child can spend on any device as well as a schedule for when they can use it. Qustodio allows you to set a schedule for specific applications and device usage, as well as determine the total time allocation for your child that applies to each hardware device they use to access the internet.
Location Reporting
A mobile parental control app should at least be able to track a child’s current location and some historical location data as well. It’s also important for them to offer some level of control over notification and frequency of location reporting, to avoid bombarding parents with useless data. Both Qustodio and Norton Family offer this feature.
Some services, including Locategy and Boomerang, go a step further, allowing you to create geofences around locations. For the uninitiated, a geofence is a digital boundary around a physical location that helps parents track when a child arrives or leaves a specific location. Kaspersky Safe Kids even lets you add a time dimension to your geofence, so you can easily make sure your child stays where they need to be throughout the day. Boomerang offers a unique feature that allows you to draw custom geofences on the map; other apps just create a circular radius around the point you specify. Android and iOS itself also allow you to track your child’s location.
Microsoft Family Safety users with active Microsoft 365 Family subscriptions can monitor their teens’ driving habits with the Drive Safety feature and Drive History reports. The report alerted the Microsoft Family Safety group if the person being monitored accelerated quickly or braked hard during their last driving session.
Talk to Your Child
While the range of features that parental control software supports is impressive, no system is perfect. If your child wants to work around the restrictions you’ve imposed, they may be able to do so by using an unmonitored device or finding a way to remove their device from the controller app. So it’s worth taking the time to talk to your child about why you installed monitoring software in the first place. After all, digital safety and security is a topic that everyone can benefit from. It’s better to approach these conversations honestly, than to let them figure it out for themselves and stop trusting you. Especially for older children, it’s also important to listen to your child’s specific privacy concerns, rather than just setting rules and boundaries that might be seen as arbitrary.
Editor’s Note: We are aware of allegations of Kaspersky’s inappropriate ties to the Russian government. Until we see concrete evidence of these allegations, we will treat them as unproventreat them as unprovenand continues to rate Kaspersky security products based on performance, ease of use and value.
