How to Monitor Kids Texts – Get Help from A Parental Control App

With social media getting on our nerves these days, there is so much less that we think about texting and how it can be dangerous. Yes, sharing posts, photos, and videos on social media surely attracts a lot of bullies and becomes the cause of disturbance for kids. But, what they are facing and doing in their personal messages tab matters a lot too. The person with whom they are chatting matters, as well as the context of the chat.

Most of the worst cases of cyberbullying and mental disturbance originate from there. Since parents don’t focus on this part, it only gets worse. Parents need to be careful about the part where kids are secretive and don’t want to share their communications. That’s why it is important to know how to monitor kids texts messages to keep them from getting worse.

A Few Case Studies

Meet Carney Bonner was a 14-year-old who read a message on his Facebook messenger and soon started doing activities involving self-harm. The message read:

“You should go and kill yourself because you don’t mean anything to anyone.”

This was the message that caused him to slit his wrist every now and then. The bullying continued for about a year and he continued to do what harmed him. It was getting worse but soon his friend saw his wrist. Before his friend could find out, he had already done a lot of damage as he was practicing this self-harming regularly because of those mean texts.

Carney was a loud minded person when all of this started, he thought it was nothing but a joke that shouldn’t be taken seriously. But, the messages became abusive day by day. It went deeper into hurting his self-confidence and they started affecting him in the worse manner. When the bully told him to kill himself, he finally broke and started doing it. He was surprised why would anyone wanted him to be dead, but soon, he gave up and started doing weird things.

When his friend found out, he took him to the school counselor, and there he started to come back to his senses again. His parents were also told about this and asked to create a good environment at home to avoid this type of mishap again. They were told to keep an eye on him so that he won’t do anything of that sort again.

Later he finally found out who the bully was and confronted him. It was someone who he regarded as a very good friend. Now, Carney is working with social service to help the victims of bullying.

Meet another victim Gina, who was a high school freshman full of spirit and life. She had a fight with her friends over a boy that they both liked. Not long after that fight, she started receiving rude messages over the phone. The bully was calling her names, making rude comments, saying inappropriate things such as “I hope you die soon’.

Since Gina was not sure how to handle it, she got all confused and bewildered. Her parents never taught her about bullying and the ways to deal with it. So, soon, she became devastated and starting drawing out of her social life. She preferred to spend her time alone and seldom went anywhere.

This was the time when her mother became concerned about Gina’s changing behaviors and habits. Gina never talked about anything that was going on in her life. So, the mother reached out to her closest friend and then learned about the hateful texts her daughter had been receiving.

Gina’s mother took action before it could go any worse. She got her to open up, discussed the bullying with her, and taught her ways to handle it. Also, the situation was taken to the counselor at school too. Finally, Gina found the strength to confront her friend who was doing all this and apologized to her about the quarrel asking her to stop the bullying which eventually she did.

These cases could have gotten worse if the intervention was not the right time. There are also several cases where the kids even have tried to commit suicide due to such hateful text messages. If the parents stay unknown to the situation, it might get their kids into a lot of trouble. These are the things that must be handled with wisdom under the supervision of adults because kids don’t know how to deal with it.

What Must Parents Do?

At one or another point, parents do feel helpless as their kids seldom share anything with them and they don’t know how to get them to open up. Most of the parents when keep on ignoring their kids and their digital activities regret later. So, it is very important to know what your kids are up to even if they are not sharing anything with you.

For this purpose, parents can use a parental control app to make sure they know what their kids are doing over the phone. Through a good parental control app like SecureTeen, parents can easily monitor kids’ messages logs, messengers, call logs, social media accounts, and much more. They can even manage their screen time through this app. When your kid is not sharing, you can find out if he is in trouble through monitoring which is very necessary these days.

Apart from monitoring, it is important to give them the environment they deserve. When kids don’t share things that are troubling them with their parents, it is mainly because they feel like they will be embarrassed or ashamed in front of their parents. When parents don’t understand their kids, criticize them, kids seldom share anything with them.

So, in order to gain their trust and confidence, give them a welcoming environment where they can talk about their issues with you without any hesitation, and where you don’t judge them for making mistakes. This is how they will open up to you and share their troubles with you so that you can help them and guide them through their bad times.