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Help...iPhone for kids

tcpoke

MegaPoke is insane
Gold Member
Oct 21, 2004
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So I just broke down and got my 11 year old a phone. He hasn’t really every asked for one, but as he gets older we are leaving him and his little sister home alone more and we don’t even have landline jacks in the house we just remodeled.

He a really great kid...but he’s a kid. For those of you with experience in this realm what are your tips for parental control apps and the stuff. Not so much worried about “rules” but more curious as what we need to install,disable, etc.

Thanks!!
 
So I just broke down and got my 11 year old a phone. He hasn’t really every asked for one, but as he gets older we are leaving him and his little sister home alone more and we don’t even have landline jacks in the house we just remodeled.

He a really great kid...but he’s a kid. For those of you with experience in this realm what are your tips for parental control apps and the stuff. Not so much worried about “rules” but more curious as what we need to install,disable, etc.

Thanks!!
We just use the built in screen time stuff. You can set hours of the day, total time, content ratings and which apps. Works for us.
 
We just use the built in screen time stuff. You can set hours of the day, total time, content ratings and which apps. Works for us.

The only thing I knew about was the total time used in a day...all of the other stuff was unknown capabilities. Thanks!
 
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If it’s for primarily or entirely at home use, limit the data (I.e., turn it off at the plan level) and set usage controls on the router. Most routers have multiple network IDs possible, so use a second network for him and lock it down for data.

App-wise, the on iPhone controls are generally decent.
 
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I hung out with a couple families that have kids older than mine and it sounds like a nightmare. You are giving your kid a tool to connect with the dumbest most amoral kids in your town. Porn, homosexual images, naked pictures of minors in the school being sent out to everyone. I knew it happened, but hearing it first hand is insane. My kids will get flip phones at some point and that’s it.
 
I hung out with a couple families that have kids older than mine and it sounds like a nightmare. You are giving your kid a tool to connect with the dumbest most amoral kids in your town. Porn, homosexual images, naked pictures of minors in the school being sent out to everyone. I knew it happened, but hearing it first hand is insane. My kids will get flip phones at some point and that’s it.

Definitely hit on some of the fears associated with the whole deal. If moms old iPhone appears to be too difficult to control a flip phone is where we are headed.
 
Definitely hit on some of the fears associated with the whole deal. If moms old iPhone appears to be too difficult to control a flip phone is where we are headed.

the only thing you are protecting is getting sent the pictures. All the other mouth breathers at school with no restrictions will be showing everyone else all the garbage. We had hustlers snuck on the bus in fourth grade and look how I turned out. Multiply that times all the Internet depravity and you have today’s culture circling the drain,
 
the only thing you are protecting is getting sent the pictures. All the other mouth breathers at school with no restrictions will be showing everyone else all the garbage. We had hustlers snuck on the bus in fourth grade and look how I turned out. Multiply that times all the Internet depravity and you have today’s culture circling the drain,

The bus was where real sex education was taught. The internet is the scariest thing we face as parents.
 
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You can’t stop it. You can only hope to contain it.

Talk to your kids. Educate them. Encourage them to come to you when they see/hear something that they want to understand better. Trying to protect them from that stuff is futile, and will only encourage them to keep more secrets from you.
 
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I wouldn't let them have snap chat, IMO that's the worst app created. When my daughter got her phone I simply mirrored her text messages to my Ipad. She had not idea and I was able to check her habits. She couldn't download any app without parental approval, so my wife or I had to enter the password for her to download apps. Did that for a few years and realized, thankfully, my daughter is boring and couldn't be happier. Now she's 17 and everything is done on snapchat for the most part. No way to monitor it as far as I know, but knowing what I do know about her I don't worry about it. Comes to a point you have to let go and hope you did a good job.

We installed Life 360 on her phone once she started leaving the house more, just let's me know when she's arrived at places, kind of takes the place of having to call your parents everytime you go somewhere. It's pretty convenient.

BJ isn't wrong. You really can't stop it, unless you hole up in a bomb shelter and avoid the internet. Makes being a good parent even more important than ever. I've found most of the time kids end up mimicking what they see most often. So they are going to see all type of crap from their friends and on the internet, you/we just have to do a better job modeling the type of people we want our kids to become. It's harder now being a parent than when I was a kid. I had maybe 6 TV channels I could watch.
 
I wouldn't let them have snap chat, IMO that's the worst app created. When my daughter got her phone I simply mirrored her text messages to my Ipad. She had not idea and I was able to check her habits. She couldn't download any app without parental approval, so my wife or I had to enter the password for her to download apps. Did that for a few years and realized, thankfully, my daughter is boring and couldn't be happier. Now she's 17 and everything is done on snapchat for the most part. No way to monitor it as far as I know, but knowing what I do know about her I don't worry about it. Comes to a point you have to let go and hope you did a good job.

We installed Life 360 on her phone once she started leaving the house more, just let's me know when she's arrived at places, kind of takes the place of having to call your parents everytime you go somewhere. It's pretty convenient.

BJ isn't wrong. You really can't stop it, unless you hole up in a bomb shelter and avoid the internet. Makes being a good parent even more important than ever. I've found most of the time kids end up mimicking what they see most often. So they are going to see all type of crap from their friends and on the internet, you/we just have to do a better job modeling the type of people we want our kids to become. It's harder now being a parent than when I was a kid. I had maybe 6 TV channels I could watch.

We did the Life 360 deal as well. As for Snapchat, or any other messaging/social media/ that is explicitly against our rules. We showed him how we can know if he’s ever downloaded any of them so there is no hiding.
 
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My wife told my daughter that if she posted on the Instagram in increased her chance of being kidnapped. Now that really worked. Statistically I'm sure it's true, I just dont have the numbers to back it up.
 
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My kids are 2 and 4 and this is one of the things that worries me most of them growing up is the internet, cell phones and trying to explain to them that nothing dies on the internet.
 
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