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Parenting is by far the hardest job on earth. Mix that in with keeping up with smartphones in the digital age? You’re going to need parental control apps to help you with that.

The 21st Century parenting conundrum

The year is 2020 and as parents of children growing up in this generation, we’ve got a whole new conundrum our parents never had to face: the difficulty of managing our child’s screen time.

The 21st Century is basically synonymous with digital connectivity. Smart devices are here to stay and our children’s use of it is only going to increase exponentially. With schools rolling out plans to incorporate tablets into the curriculum, and entertainment easily found at the swipe of a finger, there’s more reason to own a smart device today. We parents are no different – we use our smart devices for work and for entertainment. It’s only natural for our children’s screen time to increase. Thus, it’s important we help to minimise that, but it’s a delicate balancing act.

On one hand, we don’t want to micro-manage our children; we want to trust them with their own devices. On the other, it’s impossible to shake off that funny feeling that they might be spending too much time on their devices. How often have we heard our friends complaining that their little ones have been spending way too much time on the screen? That nagging feeling may cause us to hover over our child’s shoulder far more often than what we’d like.

Enter: Your new digital assistant

Constantly hovering over your child’s shoulder isn’t the best feeling in the world. Your child won’t like it because he/she may feel like he/she’s being watched. And you wouldn’t like it either because you wouldn’t want to be viewed as a surveillance cop – truth be told, who would?

The solution to the problems of the digital age lies in the digital realm – It’s no Alexa, it’s no Siri, but it’s parental control apps. Countless parental control apps exist and all of them serve the same purpose – that is to help limit your little one’s screen time, and protect them from negative online influences.

The plano App is one such parental control app in particular that can help your child do just that with the following functions:

1. Device break reminders

The app runs in the background of your child’s phone and every 30 minutes, the plano app reminds your child to take a break from his/her phone. The breaks last up to 2 minutes at a time. These device break reminders serve a second purpose – they also help to prevent the progression of myopia. Constant smartphone use can place a lot of strain and stress on the eyes and this can inadvertently lead to myopia.

2. Block apps*

If you notice your child using a particular app excessively, you can use the plano app to take matters into your own hands. As a parental control app, the plano app allows you to use its settings to block apps on your child’s phone. So, if your little one can’t get his/her eyes off YouTube, you can use the plano App to block YouTube effectively.

3. Device time scheduling

Are there certain periods of time when you’d just wish your child would put down his/her phone? Maybe it’s during dinner time, maybe it’s during family game night. Whatever time it is, with parental control apps like plano, you can control and reduce your child’s screen time any time.

It’s the 21st Century, and with 21st Century problems come 21st Century solutions. With parental control apps, you don’t have to worry about constantly looking over your little one’s shoulder. You can trust the app to help teach your child the right smartphone habits to help them minimize their screen time.

*subject to your device’s technical capabilities.