I'm a Mom with Parental Lock Issues

For the past few years, I have been using the Google Family Link app to monitor the actions done by my children on their electronic devices. For the most part, everything has gone pretty smoothly.

However, I made the mistake of setting our 12-year-old's information to Teen so that he would have access to some of the older children's games. Doing that has apparently allowed him to download mobile dating apps. Like, adult mobile dating apps.

Although I believed that our son would know this is an inappropriate application for a child of his age... I was very wrong.

His introduction to puberty has moved some of his intellect down to another part of his body.

I remember being 12... and I was not thinking about those things at that age. I was dancing around my room to Brittney Spears music, cutting magazine photos and taping them to my wall and making prank phone calls...

Not messaging random adult strangers telling them they're "sexy"...

The world has definitely changed a bit.

I sat our son down and talked to him about the dangers of what he was doing, cleared out his cell phone, lowered his restrictions to the ages of 4 to 8 and created time locks.

If you have any other recommendations for parenting restriction applications that may work a bit better for children ages 2 to 12... I'd love to hear them!

🧡Shine Bright, Kayla