To raise kids in the age of technological boom, where the internet, screens, and social media rule over every aspect of our lives, is daunting, to say the least. So, if you are one of the parents who depend on apps for parental control, take a moment to acknowledge your parenting efforts and breathe a little. FamilyTime, one of the best parental control solutions, can help you deal with the challenges of digital parenting. Let’s begin by getting to know the app and see what makes it one of the best.
What Is the FamilyTime App?
FamilyTime is a digital parenting software solution that is designed to help ease the problems of modern-day parents. The app’s creators built it in 2014 with a specific vision – to help parents monitor their kids’ digital activities and ensure their online safety. However, it rose to stardom in 2015 when a father saved his daughter from a sexual offender with its help. This solidified the effectiveness of FamilyTime parental control app and made it one of the best apps for parental control.
Key Features
From location tracking to screen time limitation and more, this app offers everything a parent may need to counter the struggles of modern-age parenting. Let’s look into its features in detail and see how they can help you in real life.
Screen Time Limit
One of the most common struggles of modern-day parents includes battling excessive screen time. Kids spend most of their leisure time interacting with screens, be it smartphones, tablets, TVs, or computers. More screen time means fewer in-person interactions. Consequently, kids face the risk of developing socially awkward behavior.
Parents who are worried for their kids’ mental and physical health strive to balance their screen time. With FamilyTime’s Screen Time Limit feature, parents can make it happen. It allows parents to specify their kids’ screen time down to the minute. They can allot specific screen time for individual apps to ensure their kids make the most of their screen time.
App Blocker
Social media and gaming addiction coexist with screen time addiction. Kids and teens love playing online multi-player games with their friends. When they’re not busy jumping on the social media bandwagon! There are a lot of social media apps and games that shouldn’t be used that have open chat rooms with voice and video chat. These chatrooms aren’t safe for kids, as they may come across as indecent people with ulterior motives.
With FamilyTime’s App Blocker, parents can look at their kids’ apps and make sure they don’t have access to apps that aren’t appropriate for their age, like teen dating apps or games with sexual content. When kids download an app on their devices, the App Blocker blocks it by default. Parents receive notifications regarding the app, and if they approve it, kids can have fun with it.
Internet Filter
There is a lot of shady and seedy content on the internet that is unsuitable for kids’ eyes. Therefore, parents must not allow kids to have unsupervised access to the internet. The plethora of adult or age-inappropriate videos, images, and text can expose kids to indecent things that may ruin their childhood.
FamilyTime’s Internet Filter is one of the top-tier features that allow it to be ranked among the best apps for parental control. It enables parents to restrict kids’ access to inappropriate websites, content, images, and videos. They can block data on a number of topics using certain keywords e.g., suicidal ideation, pornography, gambling, etc.
Location Tracking
The kids of the digital age become more and more independent with each passing day. While parents feel they have raised confident and self-reliant kids, they cannot help but get concerned for their safety either. Every other day we hear about some horrific incident that happened to a kid/teen as there is no shortage of malicious people out there.
Keeping that in mind, parents wish for a way to safeguard their kids from ever-present dangers. With FamilyTime’s location tracking feature, they can track their kids’ footprints in real time remotely. No more worrying over where kids are and when/if they would be home safely.
Geofence
Do you take the security of your kids seriously? Are you not satisfied with mere location tracking? Then, the geofence feature is perfect for you! It allows parents to mark places like schools, extracurricular classes, games, friends’ houses, malls, etc., that kids visit regularly.
Once the places have been marked, parents receive notifications as soon as kids enter or leave those places. You can stay a step ahead of your kids by marking places they are not supposed to visit. That will help you find out if they have been sneaking out to go to the areas they shouldn’t.
YouTube & TikTok Monitoring
We live in a world that is ruled by social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok. They aren’t just run-of-the-mill socialization platforms. In fact, these apps have become a staple of entertainment and creativity. YouTube & TikTok are home to an unlimited amount of data that range from educational to entertaining videos and more. Yes, there is no shortage of inappropriate videos on these apps.
So, how can parents ensure their kids don’t get exposed to indecent/unsuitable content? They can use the YouTube and TikTok Monitoring features offered by the FamilyTime app. It allows them to see what type of content their kids view on these platforms and monitor their digital footprint on these apps. You can find out what your kids do on these social media apps and train them to prioritize their online safety accordingly.
Call & Text Monitoring
Parents cannot protect kids against every possible threat of the digital age alone. Incidents like cyberbullying, racism, online grooming, sexting, etc., can lead kids to severe depression, social anxiety, loneliness, and even suicidal ideation. How can parents safeguard their kids against such horrors and prevent them from living such nightmares, especially when kids demand privacy?
The answer lies in FamilyTime’s call & text monitoring feature. It allows parents to maintain a respectful boundary of privacy and protect kids from such threats at the same time. It scans their texts and calls for such issues and notifies parents if any relevant keywords are found. That way parents can have an open conversation with their kids and prioritize their mental health.
Time Bank
Getting lost in the whirlwind of social media and the internet is very easy. Kids get sucked into the world of juicy gossip and trending videos that they lose track of time and forget to complete their homework or important assignments. Parents who wish to teach time management skills to their kids may use FamilyTime’s Time Bank feature as a crutch to start off.
You can motivate kids to save their screen time during exams or important events. The Time Bank feature works exactly like a regular bank where kids deposit their screen time for safekeeping and later use. Time Bank stores their unused screen time and they can spend it later with permission from their parents.
Other Features
FamilyTime offers a lot more safety features than the ones listed here. It is suitable to monitor and protect kids of all age groups, i.e., young kids and teenagers. It offers several other impressive features, such as:
- Teen Safe Drive
- SOS/Panic Button
- Screen Time Schedule
- Family Pause
- Pick Me Up Button
- Contact Watchlist
- Fun Time
- Content Filter
- SafeSearch
- App Usage History
- Web History, and more.
If you are curious to know more about these features, make sure to visit its website and sign up for a test run.
Device Compatibility
The app is fully compatible with iOS and Android operating systems and works seamlessly across both types of devices. That makes it an even more appealing choice for countless parents who own and use both iOS & Android devices in the same household.
Payment Plans
FamilyTime offers a free trial version for three days that comes with access to limited features so parents can test it before fully committing to the app. In addition to the trial version, it has four payment plans that are designed as per the number of child devices that need to be monitored. Paid plans come with unrestricted access to all premium features. The details of payment plans are as follows.
- The MyFamily Plan
Parents can monitor one child’s device with this plan for the cost of $2.25 a month or $27 per year.
- The MyFamily 2 Plan
You can monitor two child devices with this plan. It costs $2.92 per month, which comes to about $35 per year.
- The MyFamily 3 Plan
It is the most popular plan among parents and is perfect for monitoring three child devices. It costs $3.75 per month, which amounts to $45 per year.
- The MyFamily 5 Plan
It is perfect if you need to monitor five child devices. It costs $5.75 per month which makes $69 per year. It may seem like the costliest one but actually helps you save a lot of money.
Customer Support
The app offers a 24/7 customer support network with a team that provides prompt responses to all customers in need of assistance. It is one of the many things that make it a praiseworthy parental control solution.
New Features & Updates
All apps and software require updates and regular bug fixes. The same is true for the FamilyTime app. It brings regular updates, offers new features, and (periodically) smooths out bugs in the app. Some of its recently offered features include YouTube Monitoring, TikTok Monitoring, and Web History. The software is working on more updated features that parents may use once perfected.
Does It Qualify as One of the Best Apps for Parental Control?
The FamilyTime app offers a plethora of features that help make parenting easier and protect kids from the threats of the digital age. Its payment plans are inexpensive compared to its counterparts.
Moreover, it brings periodic updates and new features to stay ahead of the advancement curve. Combine that with the countless positive reviews, and the final picture depicts that FamilyTime is one of the best apps for parental control indeed. Parents deem it a reliable, affordable, and state-of-the-art parental solution that ensures kids’ digital safety.