7 Best Android Parental Control Apps – Manage Your Child’s Screen Time
Everything is available on the worldwide web. Are you sure your kids are accessing only safe contents? You can’t trust the internet and you never should. However, you can still protect your children from accessing inappropriate materials using parental control apps.
Ads are everywhere. Malicious elements, phishing sites, and inappropriate videos can pop-up on your kid’s Android device anytime. If we aren’t there to screen what they’re doing, what precaution do we need to employ?
Thanks to technology, parental control apps will help you make sure that your child’s screen time stays safe.
Best Android Parental Control Apps
For parents who are looking for a way to manage and control the screen time of their children, look no further as we list down the best parental control apps that will let you do so.
1. Google Family Link for Parents
Google Family Link helps you keep an eye on your children by letting you view their app activity, managing their apps, and setting limits on their screen time. It can even help you track your kid’s whereabouts as long as they’re carrying their Android device with them.
This free parental control app will send you a daily/weekly/monthly activity reports so you can track what your kid is doing on his/her device. You can also block them from downloading certain apps from the Play Store.
We don’t want our children to be mobile-dependent and this parental control app will help you set time limits. You can even lock their device during family time.
Features:
- Location tracker
- Device lock
- Set a mobile usage time limit
- Daily/Weekly/Monthly Activity Report
- Manage your children’s app
2. Safe Browser Parental Control – Blocks Adult Sites
Safe Browser Parental Control is the perfect app if you’re constantly worried about what your teen is browsing over the internet. This app specifically targets their browser, making sure that all malicious sites doesn’t get through.
If your kid is more obsessed with accessing the internet over the browser, the Safe Brower Parental Control app should get your mind out of worry. This is a cloud-based web content filtering browser that screens the contents of a web page and blocks adult websites, social networking/dating sites, and many more. You can also manage their web activity remotely by going to https://browser.kiddoware.com
Features:
- Blocks adult websites, site hosting virus and spyware, online gaming and social media sites
- PIN-protected settings
- Create whitelisted and blacklisted sites
- Voice-based navigation.
3. Kids Place Parental Control App – Free with In-app Purchases
This free parental control app for Android helps you create a safe mobile experience for your kids. It will allow you to select only the apps which they can use, block purchases/downloads from the Google Play Store, restricts the installation of new apps, or disable all Wi-Fi connections
Are you lending your phone to your kids? Are you worried they might play with your apps? Kids Place can let you decide which apps can be accessed by your kid.
Are your children still online even if it is way past their bedtime? Kid Place will also help you manage their screen time. Lock their phone remotely using your mobile phone. Alternatively, you can set a timer to restrict their mobile usage.
Features:
- Blocks Wi-Fi connection
- Activate on unlimited devices
- Timer settings to control screen time (Premium)
- Rename the app and run it on the background so your kids won’t feel over-controlled (Premium)
4. Teen Time – Parental Control, Screen Time & GPS – Free with In-app Purchases
So you have teenagers and you’re constantly worried about what they’re doing with their mobile phones. Teen time is one of the best free parental apps for Android that can help you monitor your young adults.
This parental control app for Android promises to give you comprehensive security by providing a wide range of tools. It will limit and restrict their app usage, send you statistic reports, even track their movements and limit their screen time.
Is your teen an online game or social media addict? Teen Time will block online games like PUBG or COC as well as those pesky instant messaging app/social media apps like Snapshot. If you want to know what your kids are searching on their browser, this app can send you reports about their most visited sites, search keywords, or mobile activities.
Features:
- Screen time control
- Full app blocking/restriction
- GPS Tracking
- SOS Widget
- Remote sound control
- Mandatory SMS
5. Bear Lock: Locker w/ Fingerprint, Parental Control – Free with In-app Purchases
Bear Lock sets a password to your personal apps, photos, emails, and messages if your kids, nephews, or nieces keep on asking to borrow your phone.
It uses Jasper, a personal guard bear to lock your personal apps, making sure that nobody sneaks in with your private life. It can even hide your notifications. Those annoying intruders are no match to Jasper as he can take a picture of prowlers.
This app also serves as a good parental control app as you can limit your kid’s access to your mobile phone. Want your child to use only the game apps and restrict them from watching on YouTube? Now you can with the help of Jasper. Is your kid trying to uninstall the app? Bear Lock can prevent that too!
Features:
- Fake Error Screen
- Snooze Protection
- Snap Intruders
- Flexible Locking System
- Hide Notifications
- Lock passwords using 4-digit code or a pattern
6. SecureTeen Parental Control App – Free with In-app Purchases
What’s good about the SecureTeen Parental Control App is that this monitors all text messages that are being sent and received from your child’s device. It can even monitor incoming and outgoing calls.
SecureTeen also monitors their Facebook accounts where parents can get alerts from suspicious friends and posts. We all know how Facebook can get.
We also like SecureTeen because it tracks the web history and has a timer that schedules and limit device usage. It even tracks your child’s location and parents can remotely monitor their child through www.secureteen.com
Features:
- Schedule Screen Time
- Web Monitoring
- App Blocker
- Call and Message Monitoring
- Facebook Activity and Web Browser Monitoring
- GPS Tracker
7. Screen Time – Free
Screen Time is the perfect parental control app for kids and mobile phone addicts.
This basically limits your phone usage. It won’t automatically alert you of any unwanted activity, thus, we recommend this for parents having toddlers who can’t search or download apps or browse the internet by themselves.
Screen Time does make a detailed report of the mobile usage and the apps which were accessed including the duration in which the app was used. If you have toddlers/kids whose faces are always sticking out on mobile devices, this app can help control it.
Features:
- Weekly Usage Report
- Whitelist text messages and phone calls
FAQ
Do parental control apps work?
Yes, they do. Parental control apps can help minimize the dangers that children can get over the worldwide web. But the best way to keep your kids safe from all the phishing and malicious sites is to refrain them from connecting to the internet.
How do I turn off parental control apps?
Some parental controls apps can be irritating if it acts up especially if you have installed it on your personal mobile. Parents mostly complain that after installing a parental control app, they were locked out of their own devices. When cases like these happen, you can turn off the parental control app manually by following some of the steps below:
Restart your phone in Safe Mode. Turn off your phone and turn it on again. While booting, long press volume up and down at the same time. Once your phone is back, it should show “Safe Mode”.
If the above step doesn’t work, you can go to your phone’s Settings > Apps > Google Play Store > Clear Data
Alternatively, you can restore your factory settings but don’t forget to back up.
Buy GRYPHON – Advance Security & Parental Control Mesh WiFi Router
For advanced protection on your internet connection, you can purchase a GRYPHONE Parental Control Mesh WiFi that can prevent threats, malware, and other vulnerabilities over the internet. It can also filter contents on your browser, set/limit screen time, safe YouTube streaming and suspension of connection at your own will.
Managing The Screen Time of Children
No amount of parental control apps can replace a watchful parent. We strongly agree that instead of letting your kids play with their Android devices, parents should spend time interacting with their children. Spend time with them. After all, no internet-based activity or mobile related game can replace your hugs, laughter, and memories spent together.
Do you have a parental control app to recommend? We’d love to hear from you. Share it with us in the comments section below!
have you tested the ‘parents around’ app for parental control?
kaezkaez
Not yet! We shall test and get back to you.
There is also Funamo Parental Control for Android and PC (http://funamo.com). Funamo provides comprehensive parental controls for your kids’ Android phones and tablets with web filtering, device monitoring and application control.
Torikul,
Thanks for the information. I will look into the app 🙂
I have funsmo on multiple devices. It’s pretty good but when anyone gets a new device I have to tweak the settings so nothing can get through. But recently I found the secret mode and do not know if funamo can see what is being looked at in this mode.
This list would not be completed without the the app.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=funamo.funamo
Funamo provides comprehensive parental controls for your kids’ Android phones and tablets with web filtering, device monitoring and application control.
Website: Parental Control
Torikul,
Thank you for the input. I will look into the app 🙂
Does MMGaurdian block proxy servers?
Is any of these i can use to select videos that are stored on the phone?
For example, most of the apps could restrict to a media player, but nor the movie i stored on it.
Hi There,
Did you want to block videos you have on your phone? If not, could you rephrase your question, please. =-)
I have tried a few different parental control apps, which I did not find to be very beneficial to me. I did finally find a wonderful parental control app that does everything I need and is very user-friendly. I now use Familoop Safeguard for Android (https://www.familoop.com ) I manage all my protection settings and feature restriction right from my Android device – I only need Internet connection to get my restrictions applied on all my devices that my son has access to. It’s great because it filters web pages, blocks apps, collects information about visited and blocked websites for my review. I highly recommend this parental control app!
Hi Petrina,
I´m glad that you found an app that you are happy with and thanks for sharing so others can benefit as well. =-)
can you help me find a good parent control for teens I want to block adult content and chat rooms and KIK accounts
Hi Melissa,
#9 blocks the app store, maybe in settings in can also block the Internet. Let me know how it works out for you. =-)
do you know of anything that will block internet and app store .
do the parental apps have a way of blocking picture messaging? I don’t want my daughter able to send or receive them.
Kid Mode is best parental app among your list which i have personally use to monitor my child. Thanks.
Sorry, but this list isn’t complete without Xnspy. All of these apps must be good, too. But Xnspy is worth mentioning here because apart from message, calls, emails, and location monitoring, it offers some impressive features such as ambient recording, Wi-Fi logs, and keylogger.
Hi Mike, thanks for sharing with us your thoughts with the Xnspy app. We’d be sure to keep your suggestion and we’ll check that app out.