Many parents often have situations when their children ask to give them your smartphone for playing games or watching videos, most of course they give it, because it’s easier for a child to give than to explain why “no”. In connection with this, problems begin later, calls from people who assure that you called them, meaningless sms sent according to the law of meanness, to the most important people, for example: to the authorities. Then you have to make excuses that it's not you who are drunk, but the child is playing around. In general, there are a lot of options to screw up with your phone, so why do you need these problems?
The MIUI shell for such parents has a useful feature called "Children's Mode". To enable it, you need to go to the settings.
2. Click on the line "Advanced"
4. If you did not set a pattern for the private zone, the system will ask you to create it. You can log in with your fingerprint.
5. We select applications that will be available to the child.
A blank desktop will open, with only the apps you allowed in the previous step. The child will not have access to the notification shade and other system settings. To exit the mode, you need to press the "Exit" button in the lower area of the desktop, after entering the secret key or placing your finger on the sensor, the children's mode will close.
We told you how to do it using your smartphone and taught you how to create a new profile with certain parameters. When writing the material, we used only a smartphone on Android 6.0. Today we will tell you how to set the child mode using the phone. The principle of operation on the phone will not differ from the computer version. We will write an option that you can definitely handle.
When performing this operation, you will not lose your personal data, which means that your contacts, photos, personal video will remain on your smartphone or tablet. Preferably, before starting, create a new profile and activate it by entering your Google Play login and password. How to do it read this article:. After you complete setting up a new profile, proceed further by following our instructions.
Once you've set up your new profile on your device, go to the Google Play Market. A new page will open in front of you, a store of games and applications for smartphones, tablets, consoles and for everything that works on Android. Swipe from left to right and a menu should open in front of you. In this very menu, go down to the very bottom and open the settings section. Look at the pictures below for a better understanding of what is happening.
As I said, we go down below and look for the "Settings" section, which you need to go to for further work.
In the settings, you need to find a section called "Personal" and the very first item in it is "Parental Control", click on it. As soon as you do that, a new page will appear in front of you, to which we will smoothly move on, but for now, look at the pictures below.
On the new page, we are told that parental controls are disabled. In order to turn it on, you need to move the lever to the on position, as shown in the second picture above. When you turn the lever to the on position, the system will give you a notification that you must do and set the Pin code. Do not come up with passwords that are too complex, but also do not make them very simple so that you do not forget it and can always remember it, and your child could not guess it. See the pictures below.
Create a password and click OK, then repeat the password and also click OK. Once you create a strong password, your child mode will be activated. In it, you need to customize it for yourself. What does it mean? You can specify a restriction on downloading games and applications by selecting the required rating, the rating is like an age limit, how old is your child, set this rating, the same with movies and music. After setting the necessary restrictions, you can safely give your smartphone or tablet to your children. You can be sure and calm that you will not download a lot of unnecessary games and applications there and will not pick up viruses.
This completes the children's mode setting, thank you for your attention.
Own smartphone or tablet, which almost every child has, is a window to a huge, attractive and inviting, but far from harmless virtual world. Parental controls will help protect a minor from harmful information, as well as limit the time he spends on the Internet and playing games. Today they are being developed not only for desktop computers, but also for mobile devices based on Android.
I suggest getting acquainted with several programs that allow you to filter and block unwanted content, as well as have other useful features for parents.
Features of Google Play
The simplest parental control is present in Android by default - this is one of the functions of Google Play. With it, you can prevent the installation of applications that are not suitable for the child by age.
For this:
There are 3 sections in the "Content filtering settings" list: "Apps and games", "Movies" and "Music". As for music with explicit content, access to it can either be completely allowed or denied.
In the other two sections there is a gradation by age (rating) - from 0 to 18 years. Choose the one that suits your child's age.
Unfortunately, the Russian version of Google Play parental control does not filter all the content that is in the store. For example, it will not prevent a child from downloading a comic book or a book that contains non-childish information. In addition, this option is ineffective if the child knows how to use a browser, so it is better for parents of children older than 7-8 years to install a separate protective application - one of those that I will discuss later.
Parental control from antivirus vendors
Parental control on Android can be organized using antivirus software, which may already be installed on your child's phone or tablet. Such products include, for example, F-Secure SAFE and Quick Heal Total Security.
There are also separate programs of this class from antivirus manufacturers. They can be used both as an addition to the main product, and on their own. Let's take a closer look at some of them.
Safe Kids comes in paid and free versions.
Among its functions:
- Web content filtering.
- Search filtering (allows you to exclude sites with unwanted content from search results).
- Blocking the device at a set time (excluding calls).
- Determining the geographical location (the parent can find out where the child is).
- Monitor device usage and send reports to a parent's phone or email.
The app is easy to set up and easy to use. All the main ways to protect children's safety are present in it. It is suitable for both adolescent and young child control. But you can use it only by mutual agreement, since there is no protection against uninstallation in it: if the child objects to the restrictions, it will remove the program without any problems.
Norton Family parental control (Symantec)
Norton Family has almost the same set of features as the Kaspersky product. It is also available in paid and free versions.
Available in the free version:
- The function of monitoring visits to websites (logging).
- Web content filtering.
- Immediate warning of parents about undesirable actions of the child.
The paid additionally contains the ability to selectively manage access to applications, create a report on the use of the device for 90 days, receive weekly or monthly summaries of the time spent by the child on the device and the actions on it by e-mail.
Unlike SafeKids, Norton Family has deletion protection, but some particularly cunning teenagers still manage to turn it off.
The range of possibilities is somewhat wider. Available in the free version:
Additional functionality is more suitable for parents of younger students who are away from home for a long time.
Offline Parental Control Apps
Perhaps one of the most functional and flexible parental control tools, but paid (from $5.95 per quarter).
Among its features:
- Safe search in all popular browsers.
- Individual site blocking settings (black and white lists).
- Web surfing time limit (you can create a schedule for each day of the week).
- Remote control of settings and rules (from an adult's smartphone).
- Limiting the time of using the device.
- Reports on the child's online activity (time and content of visited sites, search queries).
- The ability to allow or deny a child access to certain content in real time.
- Hiding applications not intended for use by children (customizable).
- Blocking applications by working time.
Despite the abundance of features, using SafeKiddo is quite simple. In addition, it can be used to control several children, using separate rules for each.
Kids Zone Parental Controls
Kids Zone Parental Controls is useful for creating separate profiles for children on a device used by an adult. The program is intended mainly for kids. Available in free and paid versions.
With Kids Zone you can:
- Create an individual profile for each child on your phone or tablet, set their personal desktop wallpaper. Children's profiles will only show apps that you allow.
- Protect program settings from changes using a pin code.
- Limit the time you use the device.
- Block outgoing calls and SMS.
- Deny Internet access.
- Prohibit downloading and installing programs from Google Play and other sources.
- Block access to device settings and personal data of the parent account.
- Monitor the use of the device by children.
- Remove the blocking by pressing one button (when you need to answer the call).
The disadvantage of Kids Zone is that it is not translated into Russian. But everything else is pretty good.
Modern children are drawn to digital gadgets almost from the cradle. The most popular devices for them today are smartphones and tablets. Parents have to think about how to protect their child from bad content on the Internet, keep their data safe and protect the gadget from accidental formatting. We will talk about ways to limit and control the actions of a child on a mobile device in this article.
Restricting a child's access to the device with built-in Android tools
It is worth starting with the fact that the Android operating system does not provide too many opportunities in this regard. The first thing we can do on a child's smartphone or tablet is to activate the "Parental Control" option in the settings of the Google Play app. This will allow you to filter the content in the store depending on the age limit. Here you can choose to set the maximum allowable rating for games and applications.
In theory, the function is very useful, but in practice it is not very effective, since most of the Google Play content is rated 3+. If games are still tolerable, then applications are a complete mess. Even with a minimum age rating, a child can download and install banking clients, online stores, utilities for setting up the system and getting ROOT, and much more. By the way, we also recommend that you check if a bank card is linked to your Google account, otherwise you risk losing all your money.
Starting with Android 4.2, a multi-user mode for tablets appeared in the mobile OS. This feature has proved to be extremely popular for families who are forced to use a shared device. For smartphones, this feature was added in Android 5.0 Lollipop. Multi-user mode allows you to create several users on the device with their own accounts or a guest profile.
What does it give? Firstly, each user has his own desktop, his own set of applications with certain settings that do not affect the other user in any way. However, in this case, the child, on an equal basis with an adult, receives the same rights. He can only be banned from calling and sending SMS.
We control the actions of the child on Android with third-party applications
The easiest solution to prevent a child from messing up on a smartphone or tablet is to install a child launcher.
The Kid's Shell children's launcher looks like a hello from the past. The application's interface, despite its target audience, resembles the first versions of Android - it looks outdated and very strict. Obviously, the developers paid more attention to the functional component of the program than to its appearance. Kid " s Shell is a kind of sandbox, within which a child can perform any actions on a smartphone or tablet that you allow him to do. This will not affect the basic data and system settings of the device.
The full version of the application unlocks additional features. Among them - the ability to change the desktop wallpaper, set a time limit on the tablet, block Internet access, allow incoming calls, and more.
Unlike Kid's Shell, this launcher's interface looks really childish: fun backgrounds, funny icons and an appropriate font. The launcher's desktop includes four categories: "Games", "Development", "Learning" and "Other". Create or change program shortcuts, you can not add new categories to the desktop.By default, all installed applications are in the fifth category, inaccessible to children.To open access to them, just drag the shortcut to one of the required categories.
The paid version of the launcher allows you to set time limits for both individual applications and the whole category. As soon as the time comes to an end, a notification is displayed to the child, then the program or game is closed. "Parental Control" also allows you to view statistics of running applications for the week. At the moment, developers have another program with a similar name that can work as an addition to the launcher, allowing you to track the location of the child and manage settings remotely.
The advantage of "Parental Control" in comparison with the previous application is that in the free version, the launcher allows the child to receive and make calls, which is a very important point for some parents.
The Kidix launcher attracts attention at first sight thanks to a simple and well-thought-out interface with colorful characters and unobtrusive interactive prompts when setting up the application. And the most important advantage of the program is that it is completely free. The basic features of Kidix are the same as other kids launchers. The main screen of the application contains three categories of programs into which you distribute applications available to the child. Kidix automatically blocks access to device settings and the notification panel.
The main focus of the developers is on the time limit. Here you can set the time of access to a certain category of programs, set several time intervals at once, and even specify the allowed hours separately for weekdays and weekends. If this is not enough, you can set a daily time limit for each of the categories with applications.
A separate function implemented the ability to receive and make calls. The launcher has a convenient, and most importantly, a simple built-in dialer, in which you can add only selected phone numbers and emergency services. The child will be able to call only them. In the future, Kidix developers plan to add remote control and development tasks to the launcher.
In addition to children's launchers, there are a number of simple utilities that prohibit access to certain applications. This solution can be useful if the child uses a mobile device of his parents.
Bear Lock is an application blocker in the form of a friendly Jasper bear cub that will tell the child in a playful way which programs they are denied access to. With Bear Lock, you can easily put a password on any installed application and even system settings. Thus, your mail, instant messengers, SMS messages, calls and other applications will be blocked.
After activating the protective functions, the utility turns on application blocking instantly. To prevent a resourceful child from deleting Bear Lock or any other application on the device, the program provides a password protection function.
Bear Lock is free, but offers additional paid features such as notification protection, taking a photo on failed attempts to bypass the lock, a false lock message, and the ability to pause Bear Lock. But, in principle, free options will be enough to protect applications.
The Touch Lock app does the same. Only, unlike Bear Lock, this program is designed for very young children who do not yet fully understand how to manage a smartphone and tablet, but are already trying to do it to the fullest. Touch Lock keeps your mobile device safe from children by locking the buttons. The app offers two lock modes:
- all mechanical buttons;
- all mechanical buttons and screen.
In the first case, the child can actively control the device using gestures, that is, play educational games, or simply draw on the screen. In the second case, absolutely everything is blocked, except for the shutdown button. This method is suitable, for example, for watching cartoons, when buttons or pressing the screen are not required. Activating Touch Lock is very simple. It is enough to click on one of the two modes in the curtain.
The most serious applications that limit the actions of a child on a smartphone or tablet are specialized services that offer a comprehensive solution for parental control. Often this is one of the options for remote control of a children's device.
Google's Family Link app is designed for parents who want to control their children's activities on Android smartphones and tablets. The utility allows you to create a Google account for a child under 13 and set certain rules for it.
With Family Link, you can remotely control your child's actions on a mobile device, allow or block the launch of applications. Downloading content from the Google Play store, including purchases, will be pre-approved by adults. Parents can view weekly and monthly reports of children's activity, see how much time their child spends on each of the installed applications, as well as set a daily limit for smartphone use and "night hours" for rest. In this case, absolutely everything will be forbidden to the child, except for calls. In addition, you can remotely lock the child's device manually at any other time when you need to take a break. Parents have the opportunity to even change the password for locking a smartphone or tablet.
Family Link restricts the child's access to the Internet, more precisely, the child will be able to open only those sites that are on the allowed list, or you can allow the program to automatically block sites with "adult" content. In addition, there is a Google SafeSearch filter. As an additional option, the program can determine the location of the child's smartphone. Naturally, parents can perform all these actions remotely, provided that the Internet is working on the children's device and a Google account is logged in.
The Family Link app is currently only available in the US. Even if you download the program, you must request an invitation to use it. In addition, Family Link only works on devices with Android 7.0 Nougat and above. Unfortunately, there are no free analogues, there are similar ones, but already paid ones.
The Safe Kids application from the anti-virus company Kaspersky Lab is a cross-platform security service with remote monitoring and parental control. Like Family Link, the program works on a client-server basis. Safe Kids is installed on the device of a child and an adult and is activated under a common account. Parents can add an unlimited number of devices and child profiles within one account.
The principle of operation of Safe Kids is based more on covert monitoring than on outright prohibition. Moreover, children can see what prohibitions and restrictions are set for them. Parents have at their disposal almost every opportunity to block certain applications and web content. This allows you to restrict the child not only from individual unwanted web pages and programs, but also from entire categories of applications and sites that fall under age restrictions or parental filters. A distinctive feature of Safe Kids is the “Request Permissions” feature, which allows a child to ask an adult to grant access to a prohibited application or site.
Monitoring of children's activity in the mobile version of the application and in the personal account on the site is very different. So, for example, on the site you can view detailed statistics on the use of a mobile device by a child for a day, week and month. Here you can also see which sites the child visits most often, what search queries he enters, which programs he launches and how much time he spends in them. Another feature that can only be configured on the site is controlling the time children use devices. It is possible to set a daily limit for each day of the week.
Advanced Safe Kids functionality is available with a subscription. In the paid version, the service offers additional detailed reports and notifications for calls and SMS messages, the ability to receive information about the location of the child, plan a flexible weekly schedule for the time when it is allowed to use the device, and even set the allowed territorial zones on the map. In addition, Safe Kids can track the child's activities on social networks VKontakte and Facebook, make a copy of publications, notify about changes in friends.
Eventually:
Obviously, there is no single solution for parents in this matter. There are actually a lot of applications that can help adults prepare a children's tablet or smartphone, as well as protect their own devices from the actions of a child. We tried to select the best of them, having previously divided the applications according to the complexity and the availability of available options. In the future, the choice will depend on the goals that you set for yourself. If you want to protect your baby from unwanted programs and web content, then regular app blockers will do. In order to make it easier to manage your tablet / smartphone and limit the time it spends on the device - install a kids launcher. And if the task is complete remote control of all the actions of the child, you should pay attention to a comprehensive solution in the form of special services.In a general sense, Parental Control is a series of measures to restrict access to device resources. Whether it's launching apps, browsing websites, or downloading content. Often this function can be found in the settings of the tablet itself, or by installing additional utilities specially designed for this.
And now more about how to set parental controls on the tablet.
For IOS tablets
To outline the range of iPad features available to guests, go to Settings → General → Restrictions. Clicking the "Enable Restrictions" button will activate the partition settings after entering a four-character password.
Keep the password in a dry, cool place out of the reach of children. Or just remember.
Losing the password is fraught with the most unpleasant consequences, because it will be required to run each item included in the restrictions. For example, the Safari browser.
Other equally interesting features in the same section below. You can secure the launch of Youtube, Siri, iTunes. Prohibit the removal / installation of programs, in-app purchases. Refine the rating for content from the AppStore at your discretion.
The "Guided Access" mode will be interesting for parents of kids. It isolates the work on the tablet within one active application and stops any attempts to call other applications. Protects and helps the little user to concentrate at the same time.
Another useful guide-access option is the time limit. You can set the time interval after which the tablet will go to sleep to control the duration of the session and protect the eyesight of children.
To start a session in Guided Access, open the desired application and press the home button three times. To exit the Guided Access mode, press the home button three times and enter the password set in the Guided Access settings.
For Android tablets
A similar feature is also available on Android tablets starting with version 5.0 Lollipop. To activate it, go to Settings → Security → Snap to screen. To pin an application, click the Browse button and drag the title of the application window to the middle of the screen.
After that, an icon with the image of a clerical pin will appear in the lower corner. When you click on a pin, you will be asked to confirm the action. To exit the mode, press the "Back" and "Browse" buttons simultaneously.
Starting in version 4.2, it became possible to create additional user profiles with limited access. This is very convenient if the device has to be shared with someone.
Google Play restrictions
To restrict the purchase and download of adult content from Google Play, go to the store settings and turn on parental controls. To do this, you will need to enter a PIN.
Apps and launchers
If you want even more functionality from parental controls, right down to tracking your tablet's location, there's a wide variety of apps on both Google Play and the AppStore, both free and not-so-good, that can do it.
Launcher programs (such as "Kids Place", "KidRead", "Myself!") turn the tablet into a child's toy. The launcher is a separate shell, bright and attractive, which can be customized as you like: pack applications for games and studies into the appropriate sections, disable the ability to make calls and perform other financially expensive actions, leave the right to play around with the design and some settings.
Another good way to protect yourself is to enable Google SafeSearch. Open the search settings page and check the "Enable SafeSearch" box. Click Save at the bottom of the page.
Most popular searches also implement this feature. With its help, you can filter adult content when searching from any device. Unfortunately, this option is not the most reliable, and prohibited materials will still be available via direct links.
