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Archive The Best Parental Control Apps to Monitor Your Teenager

Best Parental Control App for Teenagers

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    Teenagers and kids can encounter a lot of content online that are not necessarily appropriate for them. For example, cyberbullying from peers and dangers from interacting with strangers can both occur online. That’s why as a parent you’re responsible to make sure that your children are safe and protected. There are a number of great parental control apps available on the market today that allow you to keep an eye on what your teenagers are up to and protect them from online dangers. In this blog post, we will discuss some of the best parental control apps for teenagers and show you the features to keep your teen safe. 

     

    Keep Your Kids Safe Online 

    The functions and capabilities of parental control apps are increasing to keep up with the growing threat to children both online and offline. Parental control apps should be used as a collaborative tool, in combination with a thorough understanding of how to maintain online security, safety, and privacy. Don’t know where to start? You can read these social media safety tips to get you started. 

    In addition to these tips, the Mayo Clinic offers more steps to encourage your teen’s responsible use of social media and limit some of its negative effects. Some of the tips are: 

    • Tip 1: Set reasonable boundaries. Discuss with your teen how to keep social media from interfering with their activities, sleep, meals, or homework. Encourage teens to avoid using electronics before bed, and keep cell phones and tablets out of their bedrooms. Set a good example by adhering to these guidelines. 
    • Tip 2: Monitor your teen’s online activity. Inform your teen that you will be checking their social media accounts on a regular basis. You could try to do it once a week or more. Make certain that you follow through. 
    • Tip 3: Explain what isn’t acceptable. Encourage your teen not to gossip, spread rumors, bully, or harm someone — online or off. Discuss with your teen what is appropriate and safe to share on social media. 
    • Tip 4: Encourage interacting with friends in person. This is especially important for teenagers who are prone to social anxiety disorder. 
    • Tip 5: Discuss social media. Discuss your own social media habits. Ask your teenager about their social media use and how it affects them. Remind your teen that there are unrealistic images on social media. 

    According to the Mayo Clinic, “if you believe your teen is experiencing signs or symptoms of anxiety or depression as a result of social media use, you need to speak with your child’s health care provider.” 

     

    Best Overall: Safes 

    Safes offers a several useful features for the cheapest annual subscription price. It’s available for Android, iOS, Windows, and MacOS with an easily accessible interface. 

    Features 

    • Check your child’s live location 
    • Geofencing  
    • Track their location history  
    • Safe search 
    • Web filter 
    • App blocker 
    • Activity report 
    • Screentime 
    • Smart schedule 

    Child Age Limit 

    • 18 years 

    Subscription Plans 

    The most affordable way to protect your child The ultimate plan to guarantee kids’ digital safety 

    Monthly 

    Annual 

    $4.99 /month 

    $39.99 /year 

    • Screen time limit 
    • Activity reports 
    • Location services 
    • Screen time limit 
    • Activity reports 
    • Location services 
    • Smart schedule 
    • Web filter 

    Available for 

    Best Parental Control for Teenagers’ iPhone: Qustodio 

    Qustodio is an expensive but highly configurable parental control app. It’s an easy-to-manage tool for monitoring your child’s activity on Windows, macOS, Chromebook, iOS, Android, and even Kindle devices. 

    Features 

    • Screen time monitoring 
    • Daily time limits 
    • Smart web filtering and safe search 
    • Daily and weekly email reports 
    • Games and apps restrictions 
    • Family locator 
    • Social media monitoring 
    • YouTube monitoring 
    • Multiple device protection 
    • Panic button 
    • Calls and SMS monitoring 

    Child Age Limit 

    18 years 

    Subscription Plans 

    The upgrade in paid plans doesn’t offer extra features. You can only add more devices. 

    Free plan 

    The Small plan 

    The Medium plan 

    The Large plan 

    $0 

    $54.95 /year 

    $96.95 /year 

    $137.95 /year 

    Allows 1 device 

    Allows 5 devices 

    Allows 10 devices 

    Allows 15 devices 

    • Screen time monitoring 
    • Daily time limits 
    • Restricted time periods 
    • Smart web filtering and safe search 
    • Daily and weekly email reports 
    Features mentioned above Features mentioned 

    above 

    Features mentioned 

    above 

     

    Available for 

    • Android 
    • IOS 
    • Windows 
    • macOs 
    • Chromebook 
    • Kindle 

     

    Cartoon of parent clicking on search engine on laptop and girl standing next to her with a phone.

     

    Best Parental Control for Teenagers’ Android: Norton Family 

    Norton Family allows parents to easily track their children’s activity across multiple devices. However, it does not work on Macs, and its iOS app relies on Apple’s free Screen Time feature for blocking and tracking. 

    Features 

    • Time supervision 
    • Web search supervision 
    • App supervision 
    • Monthly/weekly reports 
    • Instant lock 
    • Get notified when you child receives an email 
    • School time: This profile allows your child to concentrate on school without getting distracted. 
    • Favorite locations: This feature alerts parents when a child arrives in or goes out of the permissible area or location. 

    Child Age Limit 

    17 years 

    Subscription Plans 

    Norton Family is available at $49.99 / year. There is a free trial of 30 days but it requires payment information. Another option is to buy Norton 360 Premium or Deluxe to have parental control included. 

    Available for 

    • Windows 
    • Android 
    • iOS 
    • macOs 

     

    Best Free Parental Control App for Teenagers: Google Family Link 

    Google Family Link offers a decent number of features even though it’s free. The lack of support for an iOS child device is a limited feature. It’s suitable for parents with older children who want to limit device time and app access. 

    Features 

    • Screen limits 
    • Filter age-appropriate content 
    • Protect their privacy 
    • Secure their account 
    • See where they are 

    Child Age Limit 

    Teenagers (children over the age of 13 or applicable age of consent in your country) can be monitored using Family Link. Teenagers, unlike children under the age of consent, have the ability to discontinue supervision at any time. If they do, you will be notified, and their Android device will be locked for 24 hours until they unlock it. You can also choose to remove supervision for teenagers at any time without affecting their device’s usability as a parent. 

    Subscription Plans 

    There is no subscription plan for Google Family Link, it’s completely free to use 

    Available for 

    • Android 
    • iOS (only for parents) 
    • Chromebook 

     

    cartoon of girl holding laptop under her arm with a smartwatch in the background with a location mark

     

    Worth Mentioning 

    Here are some of the apps that didn’t make the list but can still get the job done:

    Kaspersky Safe Kids 

    Kaspersky Safe Kids is a low-cost parental monitoring system for desktop and mobile platforms that does not limit the number of devices that can be monitored. 

    Features 

    • Web filtering 
    • App filtering 
    • Time limits 
    • Scheduling 
    • Location tracking 
    • Activity reports 
    • YouTube safe search 
    • Social media monitoring 

    Child Age Limit 

    18 years 

    Subscription Plans 

    Free version 

    Standard Protection 

    $0 / year 

    $15 / year 

    Unlimited devices 

    Unlimited devices 

    • Web filtering 
    • Safe Search 
    • App blocking 
    • Screen time limits 
    • Web filtering 
    • Web reports 
    • Safe Search 
    • App blocking 
    • Social media monitoring 
    • App time restrictions 
    • Screen time limits 
    • GPS tracking 

     

    Available for 

    • iOS 
    • Android 
    • Windows 
    • macOS 

     

    Net Nanny 

    Net Nanny has customizable web filters, solid screen time, and app blocking features. On the other hand, it’s a little pricey, and its geofencing capabilities aren’t yet competitive. 

    Features 

    • Website and app filtering 
    • Screen time limits 
    • Location tracking 
    • Scheduling 
    • Activity reports 
    • YouTube monitoring 

    Child Age Limit 

    13 years 

    Subscription Plans 

    Family Protection Pass for PC, Mac & Mobile 

    5 Devices 

    20 Devices 

    $54.99 / year 

    $89.99 / year 

    $ 11 per device/year $5 per device/year 

     

    Available for 

    • Android 
    • iOS 
    • Windows 
    • macOs 
    • Kindle Fire 

    In Conclusion 

    We have gone through six of the best parental control apps in different categories. To give a quick overview we’ve put all the named parental control apps in a table with their specs. This way you can compare the most important specs and decide for yourself. 

    Specs 

    Safes 

    Qustudio 

    Norton Family 

    Google Family Link 

    Kapersky 

    Net Nanny 

    Device (different per paid program) 

    1/10 

    1/5/10/15 None 1 None 

    1/5/20 

    Free Version 
    •  
    •  
     
    •  
    •  
     
    Geofencing 
    •  
    •  
      
    •  
     
    Per-User Settings 
    •  
    •  
    •  
     
    •  
    •  
    Remote Management 
    •  
    •  
    •  
     
    •  
    •  
    Screen Time Management 
    •  
    •  
    •  
     
    •  
    •  
    Social Network Monitoring 
    •  
    •  
    •  
     
    •  
     
    Web Filtering 
    •  
    •  
    •  
     
    •  
    •  
    Limit App Use 
    •  
     
    •  
       
    Location History 
    •  
     
    •  
      
    •  

     

    Also, we invite you to check out our list of the best parental control apps for all ages for a more comprehensive overview.

    Atena

    Atena

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    Download Safes Kids for Chrombook

    1. Install the Safes Kids app on your Chromebook from Google Play. 
    2. Pair Safes Kids with parent app. Follow the instructions in the app to pair your child’s device with your parent device.  
    3. Add the Safe Kids Chrome extension. Open Chrome and go to the Chrome Web Store. 
    4. Navigate to the Manage extensions page. Click the three dots in the top right corner of Chrome and select “Extensions”>”Manage Extensions”>”Details”
    5. Turn on “Allow in incognito mode” This will allow the Safe Kids extension to work in incognito mode, which is important if your child uses incognito mode to try to bypass the parental controls.
    6. Select Safes extension and follow on-screen instruction

    Download Safes Kids for Android

    Download the Android Kid’s app directly to get the full features!

    Download Safes Kids App on Play Store

    Download Safes Kids App on Safes.so

    Safe Kids is available on the Google Play Store, but if you download it directly from our website, you will get access to Call and SMS monitoring feature, You can monitor the phone calls of your child’s device, as well as the contacts and messages they have sent and received, including those containing inappropriate content.