Episode 62: Monitor your kids‘ smart phone use with this tracking tool!

Using a monitoring tool or device is imperative when introducing our kids to the deep blue sea of the digital world. The MSpy tool is a great option to consider! 

Check out the MSpy Tool HERE

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Grab the Pinwheel phone for your kid's first phone, and avoid the addiction and battle created by giving a smartphone too soon: Click here or go to https://www.pinwheel.com and use code BETHATMOMTEN for a discount! 

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Full Transcription: 

Speaker 1 (00:00):

The influence of a phone is insidious and it happens very gradually over time. But if we can set up a way to monitor our kids' use of the phone and help them have guidance, we can help that impact of the phone be a more positive trajectory. So I have talked over and over and over again about different ways to monitor your kid's phone and activity online. And today I want to talk about a new one that I have stumbled upon. And if you happen to be a listener from a country outside of the United States, which I know I have multiple listeners from other countries, this is something that is available worldwide and most likely available in your country. So it is something that you can utilize for your children no matter where you are in the world. So stay tuned. We're going to take a deep dive in looking at this and look at the pros and cons. And I'll give you the information so you can check it out and see if it would be a good fit for you and yours.

Speaker 2 (01:03):

Welcome to your source for tips, tools, and support to help you be that mom that is tuned in and proactive for yourself, your family, and for the wild ride of raising kids in this digital age, inspired by a mother's love with a relatable real life. Proud to be that mom flair. This is the bead that mom movement with your host, Dolly Denson. Holy moly, check that

Speaker 1 (01:29):

If you were a mom that is looking to give your kiddo a phone, but you don't want to open up the world of the smartphone to them yet, check out the pinwheel phone. The pinwheel phone is the latest and greatest for dumb smartphones. It gives you absolute control over what they do and who they can contact, and we'll help them to develop healthy habits around using a phone, check out pinwheel@pennwell.com use code be that mom 10 for a discount. So if you've listened to even one or two of my episodes, you've probably heard me mentioned Bart and all the amazing things that bark is able to offer for your kid. But one thing that has always kind of bugged me a little bit is that bark is not available outside of the U S or the continental United States. If I am recalling correctly and they haven't changed anything.

Speaker 1 (02:17):

So for all of you listeners that are not in the us, I know that you're probably like, blah, blah, blah. Here. She goes again about this thing that I can't access. So today I want to talk about another system that is available worldwide and would be a great thing for you to check out. But before I go into that, I want to talk a little bit about our approach with this. So there's a lot of controversy around parental controls and monitoring. Some parents say that it is invasive kids say this too, that they need their privacy. You know, that they deserve to be able to do things and not always have their parents watching. So having walked through this without setting up the monitoring stuff to start, because it didn't exist at the time when I gave my kids smartphones and, you know, the ever increasing capabilities of the smartphones just kept expanding with, you know, as time went on, having walked through that, I want you, if you are a parent that is just now starting to walk down this path, I hope that you will take my advice.

Speaker 1 (03:19):

And if you've listened to a few of my episodes, you're probably like, Oh yes, I will. Because you can probably hear kind of the guilt and the regret that I sometimes express in what I'm sharing, because I absolutely wish that I could go back in time and start with something like this to help me to guide my kids because the influence and the different facets of it are just so immense. There's just so many things to take in. There's so many ways to get around things. There's just, it's just it's mind boggling. And if you're a parent that has any responsibilities, other than taking care of your kids, which is a full-time job, as it is, you don't have time for this. Right? And it also is just something that sometimes we can't grasp everything, but if we put something else in place that can kind of be our eyes and ears without us having to do it every second of the day, then it gives us a little bit of peace of mind.

Speaker 1 (04:18):

For me, it was me being able to sleep through the night again and not wake up in a panic thinking, what am I missing this time? What am I not seeing? What if I do this? Is it going to lead to this? I mean, the guilt that I felt, the panic that I felt using bark was something that finally gave me a moments, peace, where I'm like, okay, it's going to be doing that work for me so that I can relax a little bit about being freaked out about all the things that I missed and all the things that could have happened if we hadn't, you know, become aware when we did. Okay. So my stance is that every child needs guidance and needs monitoring to start what system you use for that is up to you. You know, you don't necessarily have to use one of these parental control monitoring things, but I will tell you that things will slip by and you will not catch everything.

Speaker 1 (05:08):

Things go too quickly. Life is busy, all of that. And so it's extremely hard to monitor things on your own. And I do think things get missed if you do it that way. Okay. So today we are going to talk about a service, a parental control service called inspi. And I did a search and looked at different options for things other than bark. And I do think that this one is ranks up there with bark. The differences of it is that it doesn't monitor exactly the same as bark. And you kind of have to manually set up some of the things that Barker already has in place, but like I said, it is available in other places other than the United States. So definitely a plus there. So let's talk a little bit about inspire. So, you know, as we've talked about in other episodes, the influences are immense.

Speaker 1 (05:59):

It's not just about content that you're wanting to keep them from seeing. It's also about who can get to our kids. It's also about cyber bullying. It is also about the use of the phone and how long they use it when they use it, what they use it for. And then there's sexting. There's just so many different things that we have to consider when we give that first phone or when we give that first smartphone. So inspi is really, really cool because it has this dashboard and on the dashboard, it has all of these different features. So it can give you a GPS location of the phone. It can monitor text messages. It can tell you all of the calls that have been placed. It can tell you browsing history, what words, what search things were used, what websites were accessed and what apps have been used.

Speaker 1 (06:53):

It can also tell you exactly where they have been with her phone and also set up a safe area, such as their school. And then you get a notification if they go out of that area. And it kind of begs the option that you also would have this as a way to track the phone. If it happened to get stolen or lost, you can also set up to where you block certain apps or block certain sites. You can monitor all incoming and outgoing emails. You can monitor instant messenger things like Facebook what's app, Snapchat, Instagram, and then you can put in keyword alerts, dangerous keyword alerts. So you could put in certain words that you want to make sure you're alerted. If they mention them in a conversation or they do any search for them. You know, it could be things like pornography, drugs, marijuana, stealing, you know, you name it.

Speaker 1 (07:48):

It could be anything that you want, but so you can put that in as well. You can also turn off your wifi through the app or turn off the access for that device to your wifi. And the dashboard gives you a device activity, chart, or graph that basically tells you what the phone is being used for. Like their browser history, their GPS locations, the text messages, certain apps that they tend to spend a lot of time on who they texted the most, who they called the most, the most visited websites, the last locations they were at. So it can give you all of those different things. And then like bark. There's some limitations when it comes to an Android phone versus an Apple. And like I've said, in other podcasts, that is an Apple inherent restrictions. So they basically have made it to where you can't have access to certain features in real time.

Speaker 1 (08:41):

So what inspire does very similar to bark is it's when it's backed up to the iCloud or sinked on wifi, then you will see the activity. So things like Snapchat and Instagram and what's app and telegram, things like that, it won't monitor them in real time. And for some of them, the monitoring of it is limited unless you jailbreak that phone and then inspi can monitor it more closely. So that goes back to what type of phone you get your kid and how you want to monitor. And I've said this before for my kids, I gave them all I- phones. I had no clue that there was a difference and I wanted them to have the same type of phone that I had. And hindsight, I probably, if I could go back, I would have given an Android phone, but there are advantages if you have an iPhone for them to have an iPhone, because you can use the screen time limits and other things you wouldn't have, if they have a different type of phone doesn't mean that you can't still monitor through the Google family thing.

Speaker 1 (09:38):

If they have an Android, it's just not like directly through your phone when you set it up. Whereas right now I can look at everything that's going on with my son's phone, through my phone, through the screen time, parental control things that I have set up. So there's always that limitation of Apple versus Android. But my opinion on that is that if you were that concerned about what they're doing, and you have that much level of concern or distrust, I don't know if that's the best word, because that seems kind of harsh, but if you're you have that much concern than perhaps they don't need those apps, you know, that is something that I made a decision on and, you know, just completely deleted them and set up the screen time limits on the phone to where they could not download apps without my permission.

Speaker 1 (10:19):

So that gave me control over what was done. And also with bark, it would tell me if they attempted to download the app, it would give me an alert. And I believe this inspi does something similar with that. So that is a way to kind of get around to that limitation with an Apple or an Android phone is make a decision what apps they are allowed to be on. And I will say that Snapchat, Instagram, some of those that have that difficulty in monitoring are such a slippery slope. And I personally do not believe that any kid that is younger needs access to those apps, not just because of that, not being able to monitor, but because predators are on there and it's very easy for them to slip into the inbox of your kiddo without you knowing to be very deceptive and show themselves as being a kid, you know, somehow deceiving your child, getting into the contacts of your child's phone.

Speaker 1 (11:10):

So they get them off of that app. And it just goes from there. And it's a very, very slippery slope that can be very scary and go very quickly. So I believe that those apps do not need to be something that a middle school or younger high school aged kid needs to even have access to. I know that's another one of those things that as it be that mom, as you know, being that mom means that you have to make a call on whether or not you restrict those things and potentially have your child look different, or be the only kid in the group that doesn't have that app. But like I've said before, if we could just get more awareness around these apps, that the dangers of them, we should make it more of a norm to not those apps than to have them.

Speaker 1 (11:55):

If we can just get more parents to wake up to the dangers. But I think that is a very, very steep Hill decline. And at the end of the day, we have to call the shots for our own kiddo, even if that means that we are going to make them, you know, be outside of that crowd and the ones that are true friends will stick around and we'll find a way to communicate with our child outside of, you know, like everybody only talks through Snapchat because there's a lot of predators and all of that on Snapchat. Okay. So all in all, I think that this inspi is pretty awesome. I was very excited to come across it because I know a lot of you that don't live in the U S that do listen to my show, or probably just, you know, like I always talk about bark and it's not something that you can access.

Speaker 1 (12:35):

So this would be a great way for you to control. And I do think that this whole raising kids in a digital age is a universal struggle across the world around the world. So we all need to work together to figure out a way to guide our children for the future that we want them to see, because we aren't stifling their potential by just blindly allowing them to be on phones and be out into the digital world to where they lose track of who they are and what they are meant to do and be in life. Okay. So thank you so much for being here. And I hope that you check this out. If you were in need of some way to monitor your kid and, you know, bark of course is always a great option. And if I didn't say it already, I might have the advantage of bark over inspires that bark is going to already have keywords in there and alert you of certain things, such as talk about drugs, you know, sex things, bullying things.

Speaker 1 (13:30):

They will automatically monitor that and follow up with you. They'll notify you and they'll follow up with you on what's going on, inspires a little bit more manual. So you'll be doing a little bit more of the work, but it is still a great option. So I would check that out and it also only applies to one device. Whereas bark is one price for the family. So inspires a little bit more in price overall, but it's still a great option for you if bark doesn't work or isn't available where you're at. Okay. So check it out. I'm putting the link in the show notes. If you use that link, it'll take you right to where you need to be so that you can check it out. So I hope you found this helpful and that you will use this as another tool in your tool belt to help you with navigating this path, make it part of your layered approach that I've talked about in multiple other episodes, where you are using multiple ways to set your kid up for success.

Speaker 1 (14:23):

And to give yourself some peace of mind through this wonderful world of raising kids in this digital age. And in case you haven't heard this already, my approach to all of this is always to have an open line of communication with your kiddo. So that doesn't mean spying behind their back and not letting them know that you're aware of what they're doing. And, you know, just create that atmosphere where this is like a joint effort for you, where it is you learning to trust your kid so that you don't have to monitor them as closely. But I just don't recommend you like spying on them. And not being honest with them. I know that there are situations where you may have to do that, but I just highly recommend that this is a concerted effort of you and your child to create that trust and to create those healthy habits around the use of the digital things. Okay. Thanks so much chat with you. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:17):

Thanks for tuning in being that mom isn't easy, but together we can be that mom's strong. Don't forget to leave a review, connect on social and join. Dolly's free community till next time. Hey,

Speaker 1 (15:31):

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