Add a digital filter at home to avoid what they can't unsee!

Episode 60: 

We can't always be by our kids side when using a computer at home, so this episode highlights two options to help you navigate this!

Gryphon Router: CLICK HERE for more info!

Mobicip: CLICK HERE for more info!

BARK Home: CLICK HERE for more info! 

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For a FREE DIGITAL RESOURCE GUIDE download CLICK HERE or go to https://www.dollydenson.com/digitalresources

For more info on the Tick Talk Watch: CLICK HERE. Use code BETHATMOM for $10 off!!

Grab the Pinwheel phone for your kid's first phone, and avoid the addiction and battle created by giving a smartphone too soon: Click here or go to https://www.pinwheel.com and use code BETHATMOMTEN for a discount! 

More info on the Gabb Wireless phone: CLICK HERE or use code BETHATMOM for a discount at https://www.gabbwireless.com

Add a BARK subscription to your Pinwheel phone or smart phone for added security. Use code BETHATMOM for 20% off for life! https://www.bark.us

BARK HOME: CLICK here!!

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Listen to it now here or click HERE for your favorite podcast platform!

FULL TRANSCRIPTION:

Speaker 1 (00:00):

So, if you have been here for any length of time, you've heard me talk about the layered approach. When it comes to monitoring all the digital things, setting up boundaries and helping guide your kids in the digital world. Well, today we are going to chat about a deep dive, into a couple of tools that you can use to help you keep some peace of mind when it comes to letting your kids get on computers in school, issued devices and all the things I've talked about this in a couple of other episodes. But today I want to go specifically into two tools that I have found that I think could possibly be the best options out there right now. So I highly encourage you to check them out, but stay tuned. We're going to chat about this

Speaker 2 (00:41):

First. Welcome to your source for tips, tools, and support to help you be that mom that is tuned in and proactive for yourself, your family, and for the wild ride of raising kids in this digital age, inspired by a mother's love with a relatable real life. Proud to be that mom flair. This is the bead that mom movement with your host, Dolly Denson, Hey friends,

Speaker 1 (01:10):

Did you hear there is an app that will transform the safety of your kids, smartphone and technology use. It is my favorite way to sleep easy at night and have peace of mind because it is monitoring my kids' activity online without me being in their business. It is the bark app and yes, bark like a dog bark bark bark. It tells you when there's something that you need to be concerned about starting at a small fee each month, you can protect your whole family across all devices. Get connected with bark today. Use code, be that mom for 20% off your subscription for life and get a seven day free trial to check it out. Okay, so you hear me talk about not giving your kid, the smartphone at a really young age, starting out with something like a pinwheel phone or a gab phone, both are great, great options.

Speaker 1 (01:56):

And then complementing that with bark. If you use a pinwheel phone, if you give them a smartphone or whenever you do using bark to help you monitor while the other piece of the puzzle is when you let them access a computer to get online. And you're wondering, how do you regulate this? When ads pop up, that they can click on. And all of these things are at their fingertips and you're busy. You don't have time to always be sitting there with them and let's just face it. Our kids are like savvy and most often can navigate these things better than we can. Right? So if that is where you have struggled or where you're wondering if you are falling short on today, I want to talk about two things that I think you might want to check out. Both of them kind of do the same thing, but come at it from a different standpoint and depending on where you're at and what things you already have set up will probably be the deciding factor for you in which one of these things that you want to use.

Speaker 1 (02:53):

So recently I was looking through a parenting group that I was in and a mom asked a question about what to use, to monitor school issued devices and you know, their kid being on the computer at home. And how do they monitor that they already have bark for their phones, but they wanted to know how to monitor these other things. So if you've listened to my other episodes, couple back where I talked about the layered approach, I talked about getting a Griffin or Griffon router. I don't know how to pronounce that. I think it's Griffin. What do you think? I think it's probably Griffin. Hopefully. So the Griffin or Griffen, maybe Griffon sounds better. Great fun. Let's go with font. Okay. So the Gryphon router, I think they both sound funky is I think the best option out there when it comes to setting up a router with parental controls, but say you already have a router that maybe cost a pretty penny, or you're not so tech savvy and you know, maybe your spouse does those things like mine does.

Speaker 1 (03:53):

And you don't want to go down that road. Right? Well, I've talked about bark home and the options with that, but I found another option. Another thing that I think you might want to check out. So first off, let's do a deep dive into the graph on Griffin, the gray fond router. Let's call it gray font. Okay. Hopefully that sounds okay to you too. Okay. So let's check this out with the graph on router. So if you don't know what a router is, it's basically like what your wifi goes through. So think of it kind of as a filter, right? So back when I first started giving my kids, the devices and all of the things, ours was very basic, but now they make them to where they have parental controls on them. And they give you options at your fingertips to shut down the internet in your house, or to turn off specific devices or access to specific websites.

Speaker 1 (04:45):

So it's pretty sweet if you're looking for a new router to go this route, because I do think that they have kind of the best options. So let me pull up their information here and let's just chat about this. So this router has a, an app that you can download onto your phone and you basically can manage your child's online activities and ensure that they're getting a healthy amount of screen time. And, you know, you can access this from anywhere so you can see what they have been doing. It has where you can do content filtering. And it says content filtering with crowds ranking. I wonder what crowd ranking means. I guess that basically, Oh, it says an aggregated website reputation rating from multiple sources, including other parents. So basically if you come across a site that has been allowed in as dangerous, they probably have a way for you to communicate that, but basically it's sets it up to where you can filter out sites that you know, that they don't want to access.

Speaker 1 (05:47):

And then it also has, this is really cool. It says intelligent intrusion detection and malware malware filtering. I can't talk today, but this says that this router will basically recognize the activity of each device with a unique fingerprint and then warned you if that fingerprint deviates in any way from its normal activity. That's pretty sweet. If you think about like the groomers, if they're being groomed by somebody and suddenly their activity changes on their devices, or, you know, they just get curious and start going down some rabbit hole and looking at things that you don't want them to. Now, the next thing that it says, the feature that it has is it in, it has a browsing history. So even if they delete their browsing history, it keeps track of what they have done, what sites they have looked at. All of that. You can also set bedtimes on it and homework times, so you can make it to where it shuts down.

Speaker 1 (06:47):

At certain times when it's time to go to bed, you can also suspend the internet. So with a touch of a button, you can completely take the internet off so that they cannot access it whatsoever. And then it also has a safe search setting and a YouTube says safe search YouTube. It hides inappropriate content for your child by automatically filtering their search engine results. So this basically operates as a filter for you and gives you quite a bit of control. And I think that this is one of the biggest struggles for most parents is like, you know, you want them to go to YouTube. So you set up YouTube kids, you set up the parental controls. And then if they're a younger kid, things pop into YouTube kids that you don't think would be appropriate, but you don't know because you're not sitting right there with them.

Speaker 1 (07:33):

Maybe they click on something, it takes them down a rabbit hole. And like I've said, in my episode about porn, they say that porn is often one or two clicks away for every child that is on the internet. So it's not enough for us to just have these couple of different things. And then our tech savvy kids can do a couple of clicks and suddenly they're in something. We had no idea they can access. So the Gryphon router, I think, is such a great option if you were in the market for purchasing a router and going that route. So definitely recommend you check it out. I'm going to put a link in the show notes. So if you're listening to this on your phone, just scroll up a little bit, then you should be able to see the link. Now, the other thing that I wanted to talk about is not a router.

Speaker 1 (08:17):

It is software that you can use. And I do not know how to pronounce this. It's Moby sip. I think it's mob. I C I P and I will put a link in the show notes for this as well, but this is basically advanced internet filtering. So it's not the router. You still have your router, but this is another way for you to filter what your kid is seeing. And it is very, very similar to using the router, but probably less pricey. If you already have a router that's working that just doesn't have those types of parental controls are not enough functionality for shutting it down and all of those things. So this Moby set, I hope that's how it's pronounced says that it filters the internet. It will supervise the video content that your kid is watching through popular streaming services. And it will set up a robust age appropriate filtering.

Speaker 1 (09:15):

So you can basically turn things off individually, like HBO, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, you just have like a little slide button where you can turn those things off and they cannot access them. And this is through the app that you can access on the computer, or, you know, on your phone. It also has a location tracker. So if they lose their device, you can find it through their location tracker. And then also it has a place where you can limit screen time. You can set daily screen, time limits. You can instantly lock and unlock family devices. You can set up a schedule to where it has a certain amount of time and you have a set bedtime, and you also can set it up to where once a certain amount of screen time is reached, that it shuts it down for that child, which I think that is pretty sweet.

Speaker 1 (10:06):

It also will manage apps and games and restrict the distracting apps and disable them. It says disabled them based on merit. So again, something that has like the ranking of, you know, education or distraction, or, you know, the other dangers that inherently come with some of these apps, but it says you can maintain a list of blocked apps to prevent your kids from even installing them in the first place, which if you've listened to some of my other episodes, the other things that you can do is to set up your screen time. If you have an iPhone or an Apple device is set up the screen times where they cannot download apps without your permission. But of course that there may be a way to get around that. So this is another way for you to monitor that. Now this also will block websites. You can set it up to only allow age appropriate websites, and it will keep a watchful eye and stay on top of usage, browsing history to spot online threats.

Speaker 1 (11:06):

And then, like I said earlier, it'll check your browsing history and give you weekly or daily report to see a snapshot of what they're looking at and what their browsing trends are. And then as far as like set up, it says that it has a single app for parents and kids. You set it up in parent mode on your smartphone, your scan, your QR code to set up your child's device. And then it will also monitor all family devices through that app and that dashboard. So as you can see or hear in the case of the podcast, these two things are very similar, kind of do the same things. And I think both are excellent for what they help with. I think that bark is still very much needed because the difference or the compliment of bark will be that it monitors conversations in activity on their phones.

Speaker 1 (12:04):

And then if you have bark home bark home is very similar to these things too. So you can certainly, I can put a link for all three of these things so you can compare them. But I think the most common thing I hear besides someone trying to get a handle on what's going on with a smartphone in the possession of their child, is how to manage them, navigating all the different websites when they have to be on a computer for school, or when they just allow them to be on a computer at home. I hear from moms of younger kids saying that they want to start letting their kid have access to certain games or different things on a computer, but they don't know how to make sure that they're not exposed to the other things. So I think both of these options are excellent for getting them set up and giving you a dashboard where you can see what their activity is.

Speaker 1 (12:55):

You can filter out sites, you can shut down once they reach that certain screen time limit. I think the mobi sip one is probably the simplest one to get into place. Whereas the Gryphon router is very much an asset to the, you know, to your layered approach. But if you already have a router and it's working well for you and it just doesn't have the parental controls, then Moby sit might be a better option for you. And it does monitor across all of the devices. So both are definitely robust and such a gift for us as parents navigating the wild ride of raising kids in our digital world. Like I say, over and over and over again. And if you compliment them with bark to help you monitor conversations and activity as well, I think that you have a major step up on this whole struggle and wild ride that we go through.

Speaker 1 (13:46):

And I kind of censor myself a little bit in what I share about personally with my own family and my kids just to protect their privacy and, you know, to honor the fact that they are children in that me putting devices in their hands and not providing any guidance. Cause I didn't know, better mint that the deviated off the little bit on the most ideal path, you know, looking back because of what I did. So I don't place any blame on them. I don't want to shame them or anything like that. They are a victim of the times and the fact that I was, you know, in the generation of parents, that we lived through the birth of this technology in this very intricately, interwoven, digital world that we have now. But I will tell you without, you know, sharing specifics, I will tell you, like, I think I mentioned in last week's episode, that these efforts that you're making while they seem like a burden and they seem hard at times and seemed so confusing, exhausting, you know, whatever adjective you want to put on it, they are worth it.

Speaker 1 (14:52):

Your children are worth it, your child's life and your childhood's development is worth this effort and it will pay off. You may not be able to see it now if your kids are younger, but it's so very important for their future. And one of the most profound things I've ever heard was from a psychologist that was talking about the distractions of the digital age and how disconnected kids get from their childhood development. If they are allowed to be on all of the digital things, unmonitored, unregulated with no boundaries is that they never get to discover their full potential and what their life is meant to be. It's kind of like they get disconnected and lost along the way until it's our responsibility to be that guide for them to set up those boundaries, those walls that even though they may not understand them, they may be mad at us because we are doing the things as the parent and as someone who lived through a childhood where we were not distracted by these things, we owe this to our kids to figure out how to navigate this, to figure out how to provide that for them so that they can stay connected to their childhood development and they can discover their full potential.

Speaker 1 (16:02):

I can tell you with my kids, that what I have learned is that our course correction over the last two years has helped our youngest to find some very deeply rooted interests that he has and to really find what he wants to do with his life. And before we put our heavy foot down on all that was going on and really set some very strict boundaries with it, all we hit allowed that disconnect enough, that I don't know that we would have made it back to where he was supposed to be in order to discover this for himself. Because you know, we know, you know, we can't tell our kids these things. They have to discover them through their own development, even as teenagers and young adults. So even if it seems hard, I want you to just trust me that this will be so very worth it, your child, their potential is so worth the effort.

Speaker 1 (16:58):

So when it gets hard, just to remember that, please go back to that and realize that you are that mom, that's going to be strict about these things with coming from a place of love and that, you know, that long-term, this effort is going to be worth it. So please be that mom for your kid. Thank you so much for listening today. I hope this helped you immensely. I will put the links in the show notes for these different options, so you can check them out. Some of the links are affiliate links. So I do get a small payment for using my link and thank you for using my link. It does help me to keep bringing you these episodes. So I appreciate it immensely. And I only share things with you that I believe in wholeheartedly and that I use myself. Okay. Thank you so much. I'll chat with you next time.

Speaker 2 (17:52):

Thanks for tuning in being that mom isn't easy, but together we can be that mom's strong. Don't forget to leave a review, connect on social and join Dolly's free community till next time

Speaker 1 (18:07):

Before you go, I want to just give you a heads up on something. When things have been hardest in my role as a mom, the thing that was so very helpful for me was having a routine to take care of myself each day. I know that this whole thing around raising kids in a digital world is so very overwhelming. But if you have a place where you are taking care of yourself every single day with a simple routine that works despite where you are or what your schedule is, you will be able to be more present for your family and handle all of the ups and downs of this most amazing role that we could ever play in this world. So connect with me and let's get you connected to fitness and nutrition tools made by experts that will help you simplify this and then connect you with my fit club community that will support you, guide you and give you momentum and motivation to show up every day, take care of yourself first so that you could be better present for our digital native kids.