We currently have bark and life 360 for our kids phones. Im needing more control than they are giving. I want to be able to see all messages, times of calls, FaceTime. Be able to shut the phone off during homework time and bed except for contacting me or dad. HAs anyone tried our pact or teen safe?
Thanks Mary I will look into those! Bark is ok, I still can’t figure out how to get the iPhone to set the limits I want. Ugh. Bark alerts you to “potential issues” which has caught a few things but I have also taken her phone just to scroll through and found things I needed to see but it didn’t catch it bc of the words she used. I wish I was tech savvy bc I want to invent a good parent control app!!
You might check out this question from a few weeks ago. There are some good suggestions in this. https://www.mamapedia.com/questions/12870878939987640321
As mynewnickname wrote there is a recent question about that, I answered there too.
I tried many different parental control apps (that's hard work!) before I found something satisfying and at the moment we are using Qustodio, quite good but a little expensive so I'm still looking for something similar cheaper.
I never heard about bark, how is it? I'll give it a try when I've time. We tried teensafe, I remember it was enough complete parental control but it had something not working or missing, time limit maybe? I think I should give it another try, It's been a while since I tested that.
What I need is time limit (1hour a day to spend in the afternoon), report on online activities, apps block and new apps installation block, online filtering, geo tracking, calls, text and media monitoring. It's so hard to find all of this in a parental control. And obviously something that kids cannot unistall easily, many I tried totally failed in that (about it, just remember to block the phone setting and app store to prevent that).
I read mspy is another one good too but i cannot find a way to test it before buying it. Consider they work in different way on android and Iphone, so check that too. We have android devices, for iphones i heard ikeymonitor is a good one too but we didn't try it.
So, if you find something good with all these features... please let me know, I would really appreciate it.
Honestly if I felt the need to be that hyper controlling of what they use their phone for and when I simply would not let them have a smart phone at all, if I wanted to be able to reach them I would just get them a flip phone or something without a monthly contract.
I have an Iphone and my 3 daughters do as well, because I can limit their screen time and what apps they can and cannot use. Just go to settings / screen time on your phone then activate it on their phone.
