The Internet can be a powerful educational tool as well as an impressive portal for entertainment. When abused or overused, however, the web can also pose risks to your child and rob him of other important and meaningful activities.
### How Do You Know If a Problem Exists?
Although there are no standard guidelines as to how much is too much, there are some warning signs that can alert you to a potential problem. To determine whether your child needs a digital intervention, ask yourself the following questions:
– Does your child lose track of time while surfing the net?
– Does your child attempt to hide how much time he spends online?
– Does your child forego other activities such as sports or hanging out with friends in order to get online instead?
– Does your child spend more than three hours online each day for non-educational purposes?
### What Should You Do About It?
If you answered “yes” to one or more of the questions above, or if you simply have a gut feeling that your child’s Internet use has become a problem, then it may be time to intervene. If your child has a true Internet addiction, then he likely won’t respond kindly to you limiting his time online, but that’s exactly what you need to do. After all, being a parent isn’t always fun! In this case, you’ll need to set some clear guidelines as to when your child will have access to the Internet, for what purposes, and perhaps most importantly, for how long.
### How to Monitor Your Child’s Online Access Effectively
Setting limitations for your child’s Internet use is a good first step, but unfortunately, it’s not the last or even the most challenging part of the process. Making sure your child actually adheres to the guidelines you set can be an entirely different thing altogether. Without some assistance, you may find yourself spending all of your time peering over your kid’s shoulder, or even worse, becoming completely overwhelmed at constantly policing your child and simply give up.
### How Qustodio Can Help
Luckily, Qustodio’s innovative parental control software can help you monitor your child’s Internet use at any time—even when you’re not at home. Plus, you can set different time restrictions for weekdays and weekends to create a customized schedule.
In the example above, Internet is allowed between 5 and 7 pm.
You can also choose what you want Qustodio to do once your child’s Internet time is up. It can shut down the entire computer, block Internet access only, or simply send you an email alert.
In this example, Internet access is locked when reaching limit
If you’re ready to end your child’s online addiction, take the first step and download Qustodio today. It is completely free.
Want to learn more about Qustodio? Learn more about the best free parental control software.
