Have you set your kid’s device under parental control software? Are you worried your kid might have removed parental control settings or software from their device?
The world of the Internet is expanding every day. And we all know very well to keep your child’s internet behavior safe. Setting parental control on their device or installing third-party parental control softwares to monitor them is not the only solution. They might be planning to avoid and can bypass your parental control softwares.
Children are smart nowadays and they are good with technology. Even if you have set up parental control software on their devices, they can still find ways to bypass it.
In this article, we will discuss how to determine whether your child is under parental control or not. Having parental controls set up on their device does not necessarily mean they will not bypass them.
Ways your children Might Bypass Parental Control Software.
The Internet is a wide place. Your child might desire to escape parental control and browse the sites they are interested in. In this article, we will discuss methods by which your children can bypass parental control software.
Remove Parental Control Software
Your children might delete or uninstall parental control software from their devices. After deleting the software, you won’t be able to access their device remotely. They might get exposed to inappropriate content after that. You can’t monitor and keep track of their activities; your child will be vulnerable to internet threats.
If you have set parental controls on Android or iPhone, your children might figure out to turn off parental control settings and turn off screen time. To avoid such situation, you should set a strong passcode and not leak the code in front of them.
Portable Browsers
Most people, including both young and old children, are aware of browser InPrivate Browsing, Firefox New Private Window, Safari Private Browsing, and Incognito modes. Even when using private mode, safe search filtering tools still detect blacklisted URLs.
Your kid might use portable browsers like Tor browser, Epic Browser, Yandex Browser which prevents you from watching their browsing activities. They can easily be installed and deployed from a USB stick.
It is practically impossible to determine what material a person is watching while using the portable browser due to its multi-layered routing. It presents a great opportunity to go around your filters because of its core priority on privacy and security.
Clear parental controls data from the device
The parental controls connected to an app can be simply reset in the device settings by clearing its data and storage. If they reset the application and clear the data of restricted apps, even after re-installing from Play Store or AppStore, all the data will be lost. And it will be impossible to recover the data of restricted apps and browsers.
Reset factory settings
If your child is desperate and addicted to the phone, they can’t control themselves, and they reset factory settings. It wipes up the entire data on the device.
They will back up the data to a cloud drive or a PC before formatting the smartphone and then reload it after the reset, obviously without parental controls.
VPNs
VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) are privacy tools that help in parental control by blocking data breaches and ads. Ironically, Your children can escape your parental controls using VPN technology.
All traffic is diverted to a different server through a virtual private network (VPN), which effectively protects all online user activity.
If you see a VPN installed on your child’s device, you should be aware that your child might be exposed to explicit content.
Figure out parents’ passwords
Generally, children try to figure out their parents’ passwords to avoid parental control. They may sneak to set a password or guess the password that you use on certain accounts.
This problem is especially common among older, tech-genius children. There are a variety of ways they can obtain the password.
For example, they can send you a fake security message to trick you into sending them the password. Alternatively, you might keep your main email account open and unprotected, enabling your kid to reset the password.
Use a proxy server
Using a proxy server hides your IP address. Teenagers can figure out about proxy servers and visit a website restricted by parental controls. They can type hide.me, hidester, hidemyass.com, proxysite.com or many others into a proxy site’s search bar; which helps them visit the adult sites without any trace.
There are dozens of free proxy sites available on the Internet. If your child finds out about that and goes to one website. You cannot access their activities if they use a proxy browser.
Fake Accounts, Hidden Apps, and App Vaults
Despite monitoring your kid’s real account, you may not realize they may also have another fake account where they explore unsafe topics. They hide the app to remove it from the Home screen to avoid it from parents.
Kids install Applock or App Vault, which keeps restricted apps hidden on their phone. So, be aware whenever you see such apps on your child’s devices.
How to prevent them?
With the press of a button, a curious mind has access to every piece of information available on the planet, making prevention difficult.
It is a challenging task to prevent them from avoiding parental controls. They are determined to find a way around to escape parental control. So there are certain ways to prevent them from avoiding parental controls:
Keep the lines of communication open.
You should openly talk to your kids about internet safety and threats. You must explain to them properly about the parental control softwares. You should convince them that you love them and monitor them to protect them from digital exposure and overuse.
Talk to them about smartphone addiction and technology can manipulate children. Addictive and toxic social media can control their life.
Convince them about all the risks of the Internet and overusing them and set parental controls on their device, keeping the limits
Don’t Make Internet Safety a Prison
You can politely monitor their activities; if you take an active, engaged, and realistic approach to your kid’s Internet use, they’ll be ready to respect and understand your intentions.
Your children might crumble if you show strict behavior against them. If they keep exposing themselves to restricted content, it’s best to communicate with them and consult about risks and threats.
You should not be harsh and rude to them; they will be dishonest, fearing getting grounded. Being a strict parent is bad for you and your kids; they will learn to cheat and lie to avoid punishment.
You can consult with them and set parental controls on their device. Take a look at how you can find Best Social Media Spy Apps for Android & iPhone.
Conclusion
We hope this article provides you with the information to know whether your kids are under parental control or not. Children have raw brains. They need proper guidance to make them understand the motives of their parents.
There are ways that your children might avoid parental control. All you can do is figure out and prevent them from doing so. Mutual understanding and knowledge of internet addiction of threats can solve the problem.
Hope this information helps you to build a stronger bond between you and your child.
