Parenting applications have quickly become popular. They are a natural by-product of children of the new generation spending massive amounts of time on the internet. This increase in use has been pushed by the huge rise of applications marketed towards children and their entertainment. Naturally parents who want to make sure their children are safe look for the best parenting apps to make a positive difference in their child’s safety. This means it is important to know what the best parenting apps look like, and what makes one better than the other.

There are many different apps, so in order to find what are the best ones you then need to know what makes a parenting app good. One popular category of app is one that allows you to track and monitor your child’s online activity. A good app provides you with many different options to choose from, it can be customized to fit with what restrictions and monitoring options you are looking for. 

What is also important in these options is the way that the parenting app operates. Options are good, but those options need to provide a spectrum of different choices for how the application will be used. There are so many factors for how the application will be used, one of which might be age of your child. This is a factor which will go into the type of monitoring or restrictions that you want to use. You want to be able to vary the intrusiveness and restrictions with which the application operates. 

Along with this a good application allows everyone to feel respected. Installing an application which makes your child feel as though they are being disrespected and their life is being intruded upon can cause many problems in your relationship. A good application will recognize this and provide you with discreet options to monitor your child while not crossing the line by giving you concrete information about what they are doing. 

So, if all these things contribute to making the best parenting apps what are somethings that you need to watch out for? What makes a bad parenting app?

A lot of the time apps in themselves aren’t bad but it’s how they are used. However, it’s still good to know about what types of apps you need to be aware of, maybe you’re okay with these flaws, either way its important to be aware. 

Let’s consider free apps. For most people these are the only type of apps that we will download. It’s important to know why the app is free. Free applications will often make money through advertisements which will target you based on the information that is collected about you. If the app is just a game and doesn’t have much access to your information maybe that is okay. However, if you are using an application for parenting that will have access to your child’s text message, pictures and other personal information it might be a good choice to look for another app; perhaps an app that doesn’t collect this information. Usually this means the app will cost money. 

Another bad sign for an application is one that does not have a high rating on the app store and does not have a lot of downloads. A low rating on the app store is fairly self-explanatory, people tried it and didn’t like the app, you can often see in the comments why. An app that doesn’t have a lot of downloads is also not a good sign because its not vetted by other people and most likely has lots of glitches. If you’re spending money on an app that’s definitely not the route you want to go, its better to get a tried and true application. One that you can be sure is one of the best parenting apps available.