Parental Control Features for your Child’s Cell Phone

So you finally broke down and agreed to buy your teenager a cell phone. Thanks Mom, you’re da bomb. But are you tech savvy enough to know what they’re doing on that phone and whether or not it’s appropriate?

Usage Controls; Monitoring and Location Controls

GPS Systems built into your child’s cell phone allow you to track their whereabouts and how they got there. And if you really want to make sure that they don’t visit certain stores or questionable parts of town there is even a method by which the cell phone will let you know when they have left the friendly zone and entered the forbidden zone. Sounds like a horror movie. Usage controls allow you as the parents and holder of the account to determine and monitor the number of texts and phone calls that your child is able to make. You can even agree on a pre approved list of numbers that are OK to call to stop them from calling inappropriate parties. And of course, you can set a curfew on the phone usage through the phone itself.

Content Filters

You can be the one in charge of what your child is or is not able to download. In other words… Multimedia content. These filters unfortunately aren’t to the stage yet where they are completely foolproof. But it’s a start. Objectionable content can still be received by your child’s phone by the use of e-mail, IM and texting. These filters are best utilized on smart phones, but even some lesser phones have browsing capabilities.

Verizon is at the head of the class where parental controls are concerned; T-Mobile wears the dunce cap in a corner of the room. There have the least parental control options. AT&T gets big points for parental control capabilities but Sprint is next in line for the dunce cap.

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