The best mobile apps to keep your kids safe

Soulless statistics tell us that about 15,000 children disappear in Russia every year. That is, one child disappears every half hour. 10% of them disappear without a trace. It may seem to someone that this problem concerns anyone, but not them, because the heroes of police reports are more often declassed lowered elements, homeless people and drunkards. Most likely this is not the case, because such children are often not looked for at all and they are not displayed in any statistics.

One of the best ways to keep your kids safe from such incidents is to use the power of modern mobile phones to monitor their location. Today mobile applications for smartphones are becoming more affordable and most of them have GPS modules. In this article, we'll share a few free apps to keep your kids safe.

Sygic family

This application is able to track the location of your family members in real time, as well as the battery level in their smartphones. You can set safe zones, when a child leaves which you will receive a notification. You can set up to receive messages when a person reaches a certain point, which is useful if the child goes to training on his own or to visit relatives.

Sygic Family also has a built-in family messaging system that allows you to send messages for free over the Internet. There is also a dedicated SOS button that allows you to send an exact location with the press of a button. You never know when this might suddenly be needed.

iOS | Android

Life360

Life360 has pretty much the same features as the previous app. So, there is monitoring of the current position of family members using GPS, an alarm button, notifications about entering or leaving a given zone. It also allows you to quickly find out about the nearest place to get help in an emergency (hospitals, police stations).

Life360 also has a built-in free FamilyChannel group chat, which successfully replaces the text messaging service. According to the developers, this is the only search application that works with regular phones, which allows you to track the location of even those members of your family who do not have smartphones. However, this function does not work in all countries.

iOS | Android | Blackberry

MamaBear

Another great app to keep your kids safe. Of course, it has all the features you need to monitor your child's location. But in addition, MamaBear is able to track his behavior on the Internet. The app will notify you when it makes new friends on Facebook and uses curses and rudeness in messages, which may be a sign of bullying and bullying towards your children. You will also learn about all the check-ins and markings on photos with children.

An interesting function of the application is the instant notification that the child is moving too fast, which may indicate that he is driving.

iOS | Android

Google Latitude

Google Latitude is a great location monitoring tool. It allows you to see where your family members are on the map and easily keep in touch with them. To start using it, you need to sign in to Google Lat and start adding your family members through your Gmail contacts. When they accept your offer, you will be able to see their location on a Google Map on your phone.

Their position will be tracked in the background even when the app is closed or when your smartphone is locked. In addition, with Latitude you will not only see the added people on the map, but you can also keep in touch with them via SMS, Google Talk, Gmail, or simply by updating your status in the program.

iOS | Android

MobileKids

This application provides the most stringent controls discussed in this review. In addition to the mandatory location monitoring for programs in this category, you can very tightly manage your child's mobile phone use. Receive alerts when your kids are using their mobile phones in the middle of the night, when they add new contacts, or when they have downloaded and installed a new app.

Parents can also receive detailed statistics on smartphone use and set time limits, the number of messages, the amount of data transferred, and so on. there is an urgent call button in case of danger and a messaging system between family members.

At the end of the review, I would like to touch upon a question that will surely arise before many readers. How ethical is the use of such applications and will parental care turn into total surveillance and supervision?

There is hardly any definite answer to these questions. There are different situations, different children and parents. Some of these tools are vital, others may well get by with traditional means. In any case, the use of such applications should be carried out by mutual consent and after thorough discussion with all family members. What do you think about this?