How to Prevent Your Kids from Bypassing Parental Controls
You became a digital parent when you decided to hand in cell phones, laptops, tablets, or any other internet device. Parenting tools have been greatly useful apps for parents that help find a balance between screen time by blocking different online sites and setting time limits. Whenever you try to limit a kid’s screen time, it will upset your family member. It’s really important to limit the time in front of the screen. Many games and online activities keep them engaged. This is why kids think they know more than their parents and start bypass parental controls.
There are many parental control devices that you can use, like configuring routers to keep your kids in check and many other apps that you can download on your kid’s phone. When you keep the parental control app on kids’ phones, they usually invest way more energy on bypassing than doing their homework. Many online scammers, hackers, online dangers, and cyber-scammers happen daily, which kids are unaware of. Being parents, they need to know what is happening in kid’s phones so that they can protect them, as keeping kids safe is important.
9 Ways to Prevent Kids From Bypass Parental Controls
These are some case scenarios on How kids bypass parental controls apps and how to prevent them.
1. Using VPN Apps
VPN is normally used when you are trying to keep hiding your location and visit the web secretly. VPN has been widely used by kids wanting to bypass parental controls or monitoring software. Usually, VPN like ExpressVPN can let kids access the content by hiding their location.
VPN also lets you connect to apps and websites without letting the network know what you’re accessing, which means kids can easily bypass any restrictions and access whatever they want to look or search for as long as they choose. Many VPN apps are free and easy to use, but they can be dodgy as they try to snoop on a kid’s privacy, browser history, message, and more.
How To Prevent?
- Check for any installed VPN apps and uninstall them.
- Use restrictions for installing any VPN apps.
- Keep an eye on re-downloading the apps.
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2. Uninstalling/Reinstalling Parental Control Apps
Kids hate parental control apps as they still want to the day screening the phone. That is why they uninstall and install the apps on devices thinking parents will not know and we can easily bypass parental controls. Some parental control software makes you alert and sends you a message when kids remove the parental control app.
How To Prevent?
- Using parental control software makes you alert and send messages.
- Use a family account so that you can configure kid’s devices and view the activity your kids are doing under that account.
- Check time and again if the apps are uninstalled or not.
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3. Using an Old Device
Kids have a sharp mind. This is the most common way they get around parental controls is simple; they find another device. Parents think they’ve used screen time or other apps to lock down the device after a certain time. But make sure if you don’t have any other IPad, tablets, and laptops in a drawer or other places.
They can make old devices and continue using the internet when they’re not supposed to. If you don’t have any devices at home, chances are they will ask a friend to get them the old phone and continue using the internet the whole day. Make sure you check your kid’s room time and again and set up restrictions if they find anything. Also, you can consider using router restrictions to be sure they don’t bypass.
How To Prevent?
- Don’t leave any other electronic device in the drawer.
- They might ask with friends so keep an eye on them.
- Use router restrictions if they disobey.
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4. Deleting and Redownloading apps
Suppose you deleted any social media app on your kid’s phone and forbidden your kid from using it. It will not help because a simple trick is to download the app and re-delete it each evening. If you see screen time statistics in the parental control app, you see they’re using apps, but you’ll not see the app if you look at the phone.
The best thing to do is delete that app from iCloud and hide it in your list of past purchases so that your kids won’t be able to access the apple store or app store with the help of screen time.
How To Prevent?
- Make a different iCloud and don’t give the password.
- Hide the purchase list so that downloading is impossible.
5. Using Secure Parental Control App
There are many parental controls apps that provide a lot of protection and security and there are also solution to bypass parental controls. It helps you filter and block inappropriate web content. It is one of the best all-in-one monitoring apps working to keep kids safe from online threats.
As a responsible parent, you would worry about the kid’s safety, whether it’s online or if they want to go to other places. You can check the time and again and track their location to make sure they are safe. You can also set time limits and detect apps usage with an alert system and more.
How To Prevent?
- Use parental control software.
- Filter the site or apps on the mobile phone.
- Track the location and screen time.
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6. Factory Resetting and Connecting To Different Wifi Network
As the saying goes, “When there is a will, there is a way.” Kids are experts in finding and researching in this digital world. Factory reset is the easiest way to bypass parenting control apps. Factory reset is available on all the phones, which removes all the apps you have on the phone. Many devices like tablets, computers, gaming systems, phones resetting them to factory defaults will remove parental settings. The device you are using for parental controls, you get an admin account and user account which is why kids cannot change it.
When your kids are connected with home Wi-Fi, they cannot bypass the parental control app and are safe. If you see your kids wanting to take their cell phone over friends’ houses, they will use this opportunity to connect to another network to access the things they aren’t available to, making excuses like home Wi-Fi is slow and other things. Be sure to filter kid’s phones.
How To Prevent?
- Don’t let them know about factory reset if they did use a separate admin account.
- Make sure they aren’t connecting new Wi-Fi devices.
- Filter kid’s phone time and again.
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7. Using a Browser To Browser
When kids know they have parental software on their phones, they quickly do browsers instead of using apps. They will use the browser to log in if kids are not allowed to use Instagram or Snapchat. Kids can use the browser to load the same site when you try blocking the app and not block the URL.
However, you can prevent your kids from opening web browsers through screen time but not on all devices. If your kids launch a browser via a link inside an app, it works somehow. So, it would help if you blocked all the apps and URLs for better safety.
How To Prevent?
- Don’t just block apps, block the URL site.
- Check the screen time if the apps are being used or not.
8. Checking Sideloading apps on the phone
Kids can bypass parental controls by simply downloading ‘sideloading apps.’ This means using an alternative, like using unofficial sites to download apps. These apps stores aren’t managed by google or apple; they’re unaffected by any restriction you set on the parental control app. It is not a good app that is also not protected.
As the sideloading apps once have been told to trust the site, kids can easily be able to download anything you’ve restricted without being monitored. So, if your kids know about sideloading apps, then you should check your kid’s phone settings to see if there’s any account under ‘profiles and device manager,’ which tells you whether your kids are using a sideloading app or not. You can also check your kids’ screen time to see what apps are used. If any unknown apps may be indicators, check your kid’s phone carefully.
How To Prevent?
- Block the unofficial sites to download apps.
- Use restrictions for installing unofficial apps as they are harmful.
- Look in the profile and device manager; if you see something unusual delete the profile as well as the app.
9. Using OpenDNS
DNS allows you to point your DNS for the whole home in internet-connected devices, which is very safe. DNS is Domain Name Service, which means when you request to go to Google.com, or Bing.com, it looks that the domain is giving your laptop computer the corresponding IP address for that site so your phone or laptops can find it.
Using an OpenDNS, your house will use their DNS to find the website. As you are the parent, you can edit which site is relevant and which site belongs to which categories, which makes it easier to filter your home based on that. You can secure your kid’s device, ensuring their devices can be secured from network changes via password. Watch the reports carefully so that the traffic patterns of your house are correct, and check the domains of the sites, which will help you indicate your kids are bypassing.
How To Prevent?
- Use domain name service to search IP addresses.
- Check the reports and traffic patterns time and again
- Use restrictions like grounding for a week if they disobey.
Summing Up
Kids are very sensitive, and they should be protected from dangers like online lurking, scams, and others. It is very important to create a healthy digital habit for kids. It will help make them balance between learning and playing or surfing through the internet. If your kids aren’t obedient and don’t follow the screen time you set, getting a parental control app would be a helpful option from bypass parental controls. Make sure to be a little strict so that they’ll not disobey you.
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