Staying Safe Online: How To Choose Parental Contorl Software

According to the statistics published at the GuardChild, 65% of 8-14 year olds have experienced cyberbullying at least once in their lives, 70% of children 7 to 18 years old have accidentally encountered online pornography, often through a web search while doing homework. It's hard to believe, but at the same time only 15% of parents are aware of how their kids' online behaviours can lead to cyberbullying and only 33% of those parents and educators use some kind of filtering or blocking software in order to protect their kids from Internet dangers.

A recent study conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics revealed that excessive media use can lead to sleep and eating disorders, attention problems and difficulties at school, at home and at social situations. Moreover, uncontrolled access to violent games and the Internet may provoke serious psychological harm. The AAP recommends to limit screen time to 1 or 2 hours per day, provide children with high quality content appropriate for a certain age group and guide young users through the process of "media discovering".

Although it's important to talk to your kids about responsible online behaviour, nowadays, there are lots of software products that can assist parents in their efforts to keep children safe when using technology. Here are some pieces of advice which could help parents and educators to choose the right parental control software solution:

Scheduling - Not all parental control software support this feature, but when choosing the best solution for your kid be sure you are able to pick the specific hours when your child can use a computer, block access to a pc or specific applications during certain times of the day. Website filtering and blocking - lots of parental control software solutions block inappropriate content based on keywords. Nevertheless, it is better to choose a package which is based on a "white-list" principle when you can manually select and allow appropriate web sites based on your child's age and personal preferences.

High-quality content - Ideally, the best software not only should protect your son/daughter from online damages but also provide a user with the best content, proper of the software or selected and brought to you from thousands of internet publishers. Remote monitoring and management - good parental control package allows you to be aware of what your children are doing in every moment even if you are far from them, so be smart enough to find out if the software you are to purchase includes options for remote access and sending alerts.

A good example of parental control software that meets all of the above mentioned characteristics is Magic Desktop (à please include this link here https://www.magicdesktop.com/?aid=EZC5) developed by the Norwegian software development company Easybits Group. It's an educational platform for children aged 2 to 12 which includes more than 50,000 interactive activities, games and videos carefully developed and selected for the youngest audience.

The program completely locks any access to the operational system and turns a regular computer into a playground for kids. In order to leave this protective sandbox you must enter a password first. Also, Magic Desktop includes a safe browser and a secure email client which protect children from inappropriate content, spam, phishing and cyber-bullying. New email contacts must be approved by parents or educators, so you can be sure that your child will never start a conversation with a stranger.

With Magic Desktop you can easily adjust important parental control settings: limit computer use, set restrictions for programs, adjust No Work - No Play option which encourages children to learn, etc. The intelligent content selection allows one not to get lost in the vast amount of information and provides users with different activities according to their age and personal preferences. You can find more information about the software by visiting Magic Desktop web site  or download a free trial version here.