This vast Internet world has billions of content created every day, and up to 30% of this is related to adult content. Besides, the COVID pandemic has caused many children and young people to use the Internet more for learning and entertainment. So the risk is very high that your child will have access to such harmful content.
That’s why many parents looking to set up parental controls have better protect their children but are these parental control settings really fulfilling their role? What are the negative effects of parental control?
This article will help you better understand Pros and Cons of parental controls that only smart parents know.
Pros and Cons of parental controls
Why parental control is important?
Block pornography
Pornography seems to have become an organized and expanding industry, targeting younger potential customers. The growth of the Internet and Internet devices all enable even ten-year-olds to be used to watch videos, play games, etc.
As a result, many children unknowingly have access to pornography and are severely psychologically affected by it. Some of the harmful effects of early and frequent access to pornography include:
- Be addicted to pornography as it is addictive like drugs, marijuana, etc
- Pornography that distorts the image of women
- Pornography makes children less intelligent
- Pornography creates unrealistic expectations about sex
Using parental monitoring software is one of the wisest and most effective ways to limit the access of pornographic websites and content to your children.
Block other harmful content
Besides pornography, some other content can have a negative impact on your child’s psyche such as:
- Horrifying content like ghosts, accidents, gore, murder, etc.
- Content about stimulants, drugs, and weapons
- Hate speech: obscene, hurtful, offensive words and comments
Using parental control software is also one of the ways to better protect your children from this inappropriate content.
From there, limiting your children’s access to harmful content helps your children surf the web safer and healthier, ensuring their healthy physical and mental development.
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Why parental control is bad?
In this world, every process, everything, organization, software, mobile phone, laptop book, and many more has certain professional points and weaknesses. So parental control software also has weaknesses that parents should understand before using such software to monitor their children.
Keep track of all your child’s activities
This may be considered an advantage for some parents, but for most parents, being too controlling by monitoring all of their children’s activities is one of the outstanding disadvantages of parental control software. Currently, parental control software has features that allow parents to access and monitor:
- Browsing history
- Calls and messages
- Social media activities like liking, sharing, commenting
- Mobile app installation activity
- Location Tracking: There are a few software for parents that allow you to track your child’s exact location along with the movement path. Some even allow you to record and listen to your surroundings by automatically video calling and your smartphone’s microphone.
What are the consequences of being too controlling for your child?
Negative impact on the parent-child relationship
This is probably the biggest downside of setting up parental controls. Installing parental monitoring software on your child’s computer or smartphone can make your child uncomfortable and annoyed by the feeling of being untrusted. Besides, there is also the feeling of being betrayed when they think that even the people closest to them don’t believe them.
Imagine when you have a computer and a phone in your hand but dare not do anything because every action you do, every comment, every share, every message you send is monitored and controlled, you how do you feel? Your child will feel the same way, maybe even worse.
From there, your child may no longer trust you, which can create both mental and emotional stress, fracturing the parent-child relationship.
Risks of removing parental control settings
If your child is a tech geek or very smart with tools, the installed software is in danger as your child may uninstall it. Moreover, many times your child does not need to tinker and find a way to remove it because Google already exists.
With just a few keywords or joining a group or forum, your child can completely know how to uninstall these tools and software.
So you should never underestimate a child’s intelligence as he or she can figure out how to stop and remove the surveillance software and you won’t be able to monitor or control your child’s activities.
Expensive
Parenting software offers some premium features that come with a premium price tag. These features typically allow reading your child’s messages, following them on social media, tracking their geolocation, and more. This price may not fit the budget of some parents.
Conclusion: Parents should be wise when setting up parental controls
Reading this far, most parents have the same question: So how to protect our children but not over-control them?
CyberPurify understands that parents are very worried about their children accessing harmful content but being over-controlling their children such as monitoring instant messaging applications, accessing contact books, reading text messages, etc. track all recent contacts, etc will backfire. Those are negative effects of parental control, not good one. Imagine your kids know this and how much they will hate you?
That’s why many parents have chosen content filtering tools – considered as one of the best free parental control software to hide 15 types of harmful content on the Internet, including:
- Pornography
- Horrifying content like gore, accidents, ghosts, violence, murder, terrorism, etc
- Content about stimulants, addictive substances such as alcohol, beer, marijuana, drugs, etc
- Content with aggressive elements, hurting others like Hate speech
This free porn blocker extension can help to minimize your child’s access to harmful content, ensuring a healthy online environment for your child but at the same time, not invading their privacy rights.
Instead of constantly monitoring your child (both parent and child are tired), you should combine the use of technology (as mentioned) and healthy conversations with your child such as:
- Regularly discuss and educate your child about the harmful effects of pornography, such as pornography misrepresent their child’s perceptions, make them less informed, or have unrealistic expectations about sex, etc.
- Even if your child doesn’t use or has a social network, be proactive and regularly discuss inappropriate content that he will probably reach and encourage him to share with you when he encounters anything. make children uncomfortable such as images of animal abuse, drugs, images of accidents, etc.
- Wise modern parents are always proactive in bringing the best for their children. To better protect your child from all porn sites, for all internet-connected devices your child use, you should pre-order Wifi Device, becoming the first parents to own the solution which 24/7 protects your kids from harmful websites. Best prices are always available for early birds!
- Building an intimate sharing environment between children and parents, discussing with them what is appropriate and inappropriate on the Internet like two friends, children are both more receptive and trusting in you.
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