For those aren’t sure what those words mean, 3rd Party Parental Controls are apps that offer parents additional digital controls. They give parents enhanced visibility and control over their kids’ devices and digital activities.
During the course of your digital parenting journey, you may have come across one and wondered whether or not you need it. While I cannot answer that question specifically for you— each of our situations are different— I can lay out the options, what to consider about them so you can decide for yourself whether and/or which.
Here are the major players and what they are known for:
Google Family Link - Best Free Option
Bark - Best for Social Media* and cyberbullying. One of the best known.
Qustodio - Best Overall according to some
Kaspersky Safe Kids - consistently Highly Rated
Norton Family- Trusted Brand in the cyber safety space
Net Nanny - Best Overall according to some
Our Pact - Best for iOS
A few general notes
Not all parents will decide to use these apps. There are parental controls on every operating system and app that your child will potentially use. Some are just better/more complicated than others.
For example, Android devices have better parental controls and play much nicer with 3rd party parental controls than Apple. I’m an Apple person and I don’t want this to be true, but its true.
One of the biggest Apple issues has been. known bug with time controls. But its supposedly been fixed. Depending upon your cynicism or optimism that may be applicable here.
No single platform or service will solve it all.
*For example, Snapchat notoriously doesn’t play well with any 3rd party apps.
These apps cost money. With the exception of Google Family Link, 3rd party parental controls are an additional expense.
Investing in extra parental controls can feel like the opposite of trust. It could very well be that your kid is too young/not mature enough for too much trust and/or your kid has broken trust. These are two very good reasons to consider using 3rd party parental controls.
But if your longer term plan is to build or get back to trust with your kid, this may send the wrong signal. Or not. It may absolutely be the right short term message to send (just note many pricing packages are year long contracts).
So how do I figure out if I need one?
There is no simple answer to that question, but here are some things to consider:
What message do you want to send about trust?
Is your kid young/less mature and or have they broken your trust when it comes to devices or social media?
Do you have the bandwidth to sign up for another set of parental controls to learn and manage?
Can you afford or do you want to take on an additional expense?
Is Snapchat your main issue?
Are you looking for help with web filtering, app blocking, screen time limits, location tracing and social media monitoring? All apps listed in this article cover these areas.
Are you looking for help with Call Logging, Text Logging and Text Content? Of the apps listed in this article, only Qustidio, Net Nanny and Our Pact cover these areas.
Pros, Cons & Pricing
If you need more data to decide, Paying Subscribers can read on to see my full research grid which details all 7 apps across 12 inputs including prices, pros & cons.
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