Do you have any clue what your children are doing on their sophisticated gadgets and smartphones you bought them on their birthday? Do you doubt that children may be secretly viewing content or hiding images inappropriate for their age? Or maybe your teenager is talking to a stranger and engaging in a harmful activity without you even knowing it.
According to a Family.org post, many teenagers in America try to hide their online activities from their parents and use age-inappropriate apps and websites. The bad news is that many teenagers know how to hide apps and content intentionally from their parents on their digital devices.
In this digitally advanced era, many teenagers are living online lives and use software to hide indecent photos and bawdy content. Moreover, many parents do not know of their young teens surfing social media sites. This shows that you should seriously think about and know about the secret digital lives of your kids to help them avoid disastrous consequences.
If your young kid is meeting strangers on social media or hiding videos on their smartphones, how will find that out? This post will show you what your kids are doing on their digital devices and how you can detect their every activity without even letting them know.
Signs that your kids are hiding apps on their smartphones
Before getting into how you can explore various types of inappropriate apps and multimedia on your child’s computer, here are a few signs to tell that your children are bluffing with you. These signs show that kids are pushing their digital boundaries and accessing social media or apps online not helpful for their positive growth.
- When you enter your kid’s room, they quickly turn their smartphones off.
- Kids quickly alter their sitting position when you get close to their rooms.
- They straightforward deny providing you access to their social media passwords.
- They are always out of their data plan.
- They often feel exhausted due to excessive screen time and lose their sleep.
In addition to these signs, kids also hide apps and use password-protected apps to serve a secret purpose. These signs may overwhelm you as a parent and have a little idea of what they are hiding on the smart devices.
What young people are hiding on their phones?
A Forbes post state that almost 37% of teenagers in America own a tablet. Two-third of them also use a smartphone. The author reveals that many kids sit in their classrooms with their friends using their phones. Kids love to hide behind their smartphones and prefer situations that foster online communication with strangers.
This raises the question of whether your kids have boundaries or not? Your kid might also feel overwhelmed by the stress of their education and may use explicit apps you know nothing about. This increases your responsibility to reduce their screen time and also find effective ways to monitor the hidden apps and multimedia on their phones. Children are generally hiding the following type of activities and apps on their smartphones.
The Ghost Apps
Children are often obsessed with using social media, websites, and instant messenger (IM) chats. They use many ghost apps to allow them to hide inappropriate photos, text messages, contact lists, and Internet browsing history.
Private Browsers and Photo Apps
Many apps look like a simple calculator and allow kids to create a secret password-protected folder to save all their inappropriate and private photos. Kids can hide video and files such as presentations and text documents in these secret folders.
Self-Destructive Hidden Chats on Snapchat
If you are not devoting ample time to your kids, then chances are they will discover online ways and social media sites to mingle with other people.
Many teenagers use Snapchat nowadays that leaves no proof of their text messages, videos, or images. These messages unlike Facebook chats disappear as soon as kids discontinue chatting with strangers. If you as a parent, have not yet used Snapchat, ask your teenager about it and watch them getting nervous about hiding their private messages on it.
What Parents can do about it?
Experts agree that parents and young kids must have a family meeting every two weeks to freely discuss kids’ problems. According to Counseling Today, parent-child conversations often
Works as an effective therapy to treat mental disorders in children. Parents can take the following steps to ensure their children refrain from hiding their online activities from them.
1.Counsel Kids
Parents should talk to kids about protecting their identity and privacy online. A family meeting or a counseling session is vital for reminding kids that they should never reveal their addresses and credit cards to strangers. Parents should guide kids about not downloading secret software and create multiple social media accounts. That allows parents to build trust with kids and help them to reveal their inner feelings.
2.Keep a Watchful Eye on your Children
Stop punishing kids for their screen time. Resist the urge to snatch their smart devices forever. That will frustrate them even more. Be aware of what your kids are doing on the Internet and talk to them about their screen time experience to avoid a dangerous situation.
3.Monitor their Smart Phones and Social Media using Spying Apps
Some parents do not understand the difference between unnecessary monitoring and needful spying. Parents have a right to actively monitor their child’s browsing history, social media accounts, and IM chats, and phone calls. As a parent, you should also respect the privacy of your kids and save them from immoral activities. However, you should use technological means and resources smartly to monitor their secret online activities to protect them from engaging in risky behaviors.
That is where the best smartphone parental control app such as XNSPY can help to save your kids from using and hiding secret apps on their digital devices. The following powerful features make XNSPY the most beneficial parental control app in the world.
- View Call Logs and Text Messages
Access all data regarding incoming and outgoing calls on the targeted devices. XNSPY even tells you the time, date, and call duration on your kid’s phone. Moreover, you can also view all the SMS messages with data and time.
- Monitor IM Chats
XNSPY offers perfect monitoring of social media apps and conversations such as Facebook chats, WhatsApp photos, Viber calls, Instagram photos, and Skype chats.
- Track Kids with GPS
With built-in GPS features, the best app gives you details of your child’s location with 100% accuracy. You can get alerts when your kids visit a particular city or location.
- Monitor Online and Social Media Activities
Parents can read all emails, monitor browsing history, and even get alerts regarding text messages on your kids’ phones. You can also view their social accounts to know their secret messages.
- Record Phone Calls
All the calls coming to and going out of your teenager’s phone are recorded using the app. Listen to the recorded calls and find out what they are up to.
- View Photos and Videos
While installed on your kid’s iPhone or Android device, the app helps you to access various videos and photos. Moreover, you can also download the multimedia files stored on their devices.