Facebook Parental Controls: A Step-by-Step Guide

The key solution to keep your kids safe while using Facebook – set up Facebook parental controls. Even though Facebook was initially created for adults only, and you are not allowed to have your own account before 13 years old, more and more kids lie about their age and register on Facebook. But why are there such age restrictions? Before a certain age, children cannot take full responsibility for their actions and estimate what is good or bad for them. 

Social media can become a real threat to your kid’s safety. Exchange of excessive amounts of information, contact with strangers, affection of unwanted content, fake news, cyberbullying, sexual harassment, personal data theft, and data harvesting – this is all that can wait for your kid on social media. Experts advise introducing your kids to social media as late as possible. When you feel your child is ready to face all the danger, it is the right time.

In 2017, Facebook launched a dedicated kid’s app called Messenger Kids. This program was aimed at solving the uprising problem of younger kids using Facebook and giving their parents more control over social media. The kid’s version provides parental controls and allows one to manage key activities. 

How to Put Parental Controls on Facebook and Block Someone on Messenger?

Facebook allows you to apply a certain amount of restriction on your child’s account. Yes, they cover the key activities and help you prevent any bad situations, but it is still not enough for complete safety. Out of the possible restrictions provided by Facebook, you can:

• Restrict chatting functions
• Block inappropriate content 
• Prevent identity theft
• Limit social interaction

How to Set Up Facebook Parental Controls?

To turn on Facebook Parental controls, you need to access your child’s account first. Once you are on the account’s setting page, click Settings and Privacy → Privacy check-up. 

With the Privacy Checkup tool, it is easy to set up parental controls for your kid’s account in only 3 steps. The first step is to choose who can see your kid’s posts and new content. Make sure you select “Friends” so that strangers don’t have access to this data. 

The next step of privacy checkup includes your kid’s personal information, such as birth date, phone number, email address, and living place. We suggest restricting this information to “only me” access. This setting will prevent your kid’s personal data from being stolen and misused.

Further steps will enable you to add people to the blocked list. There can be situations when you don’t want any interaction of your kid with some people.

Another useful setting you can apply for your child’s Facebook account is to control who can send friend requests to your kid. Set it to friends of friends to limit unwanted interactions.

Why Do You Need It?

Digital parental control is an inevitable part of child guidance. Online life is an essential part of life for most kids these days. You, as a parent, should understand that it is your task to help your kid be safe while using their gadgets. What is important – tell your kids that you have parental control over what they are doing online. Explain to them what are the risks of using social media and why you are limiting certain activities. Your kids need to know every danger hidden behind innocent actions. This will help you develop a trustworthy relationship with your children. 

Before your kids get their first accounts on social media, try to explain how to protect themselves online. First of all, they should know that they should talk online only to people they know. And be aware that sometimes the social media world can be cruel and rude. No matter how much you control your kids online, it will never allow you to prevent any evil thing from happening 100%. So let us now talk about the key reasons you need to use parental control for your kids’ social media accounts of your kids?

Protecting from Potential Harm

For the time when your kid is too young, you are the one who protects your child from potential harm. It is vital to teach your kid how to defend themselves online since you will always be here to guard them. Of course, as you start introducing your kid to the online world, you will teach all these things gradually. The first thing you can do is explain to your kid what can happen to them online: cyberbullying, sexting, abuse, personal data theft, and much more. 

Once your child is aware of social media and how to use it right, you can now move to the next step – implement parental controls. You should apply this step if your child is too young to be responsible for their actions. Parental control is a tool that helps parents manage their kid’s activities online and prevent negative things from happening to them. With the help of Facebook parental controls, you can track online activity, restrict unwanted content, and filter communication with others. With special tracking software, you can access much more data than only social media and protect your kid from online threats and suspicious people.

Informational Security

The risk of personal data leaks with parental controls active is shallow. The reason for this is that a child account is mostly protected by an adult account and has family membership features. But at the same time, it is quite easy for online predators to get all the needed information from your child. Since children don’t have the necessary experience in standing up against the invasion of privacy, they often become victims. Frauds are hunting kids online and can easily manipulate them. Teach your kid about basic methods for protecting their personal information and that they should not share it with anyone. What can you do to teach your kid some informational security basics?

• Start as soon as possible. Once your kid is capable of using a computer or any other device, it’s time to talk about how to use them safely. 
• Be aware of your kid’s activities online. Try to use one area at home where every member of your family uses devices. This will allow you to monitor what your kid is doing. 
• Limit their private information. While setting up their social media account, take care of your kid’s privacy. Explain how to limit the info available online. Show it only to close friends. 
• Explain to your child who cyberbullies, online predators, scammers, and hackers are. Explain what kind of threat they can be and how to react properly if they face it online. 

Develop Healthy Digital Habits

Most of our habits are shaped in our childhood. Modern parents now need to pay attention to the way their children use gadgets and social media. The overuse of technology today has become a real problem. IT can evolve into some kind of addiction. To prevent this, parents should help their kids to develop healthy relationships with technology. The consequences of overusing gadgets are well-known: lack of sleep, anxiety, obesity, bad physical shape, inattention, hyperactivity, etc. The list can go on and on. 

Indeed, certain things can help parents educate their children and foster healthy habits in digital life. One of the methods – implement parental controls on all kid’s devices. This method will allow you to manage screen time and monitor most of the kid’s online and offline activities. Use it for the time, while your child cannot control their actions, and help to keep the right online-offline life balance. For this, you can use parental controls software or enable this feature on some platforms. For example, use Windows parental controls to manage kids’ activities on PC or their Xbox console. Consider using other limitations, and find out more about how they work in Netflix parental control guide. 

How-To Guide for Parents to Protect Their Kids on Facebook

Facebook is a network with a lot of active users and a huge information flow. But how to protect your children from any malicious content or people? Here is a little guide on what you can do:

• Periodically check your kid’s profile to make sure they don’t pass any personal data such as phone number, address, or private photos to any strangers. 
• Check privacy settings on their Facebook and make sure they are set for friends only. 
• Show them how to block someone on Messenger and how to communicate about inappropriate content.
• Talk about cyberbullying and how to prevent it 
• Explain how to detect fake news and stay away from fraud

By using Facebook parental controls and privacy settings, you can protect your kid online. And in case you want even more protection, don’t hesitate to use dedicated parental control software.

How to Use the Facebook Restricted List to Protect Your Child’s Life

You are free to decide who goes to the Facebook restricted list. When you want to restrict someone on Facebook, you need to go to their profile. Under their profile picture, you need to click the friend’s icon. Then, under the edit friends list, replace this profile with the restricted list. If you want to change it back, repeat the same steps and put this person on another list. 

Make sure you remember that restricting someone on Facebook cannot 100% keep your kid safe. This person can still send messages to your child and see public posts. Once you know that someone is suspicious – the best solution is to block this person. When someone is blocked, they cannot find your profile or message you. In terms of kids’ safety, it seems to be the most effective way to protect your child. Most likely, you will allow your kid to add to the friends list only people they know. And using Facebook privacy settings will allow you to manage all the account’s data visibility and much more.

What Is the Facebook Restricted List?

Privacy settings on any Facebook account are customizable. You have a vast variety of options that allow you to regulate all kinds of interactions. If you don’t know how to block someone on Messenger – the Facebook restricted list is right for you. You can add those people you want to this restricted list but still remain friends. What happens is that your restricted friends will not see your posts as long as it is not set to public. If you tag this restricted friend in a new post – then they can see this post. 

Once you find any suspicious friends in the list on your kid’s Facebook account, you can easily add them to the restricted list and limit the possible interactions, such as seeing posts or messaging. If you feel that your child is being threatened by someone online, you can block this person. Once someone is blocked, they won’t be able to find your kid’s profile or message them. Use parental control software to monitor your kid’s safety.

How Can uMobix Help You?

What is an effective tool that will help you monitor your kid online? uMobix is a parental control software that was created for safe parenting. With the help of uMobix, you can easily monitor and manage all your kid’s activities. So, what can you do with this app installed on your kid’s phone?

• See everything they do on social media. With whom they chat, what they like, and which photos they share 
• Thack their GPS location in real time. Get daily reports of visited places during the day 
• Monitor their calls and messages, even deleted ones 
• Regulate screen time and how long they can use each app 
• Detect if any malware or a secret app appears on your kid’s phone

Of course, this is just a small number of available features, but even this is enough to provide your child with safe and pleasant experiences of living online. Take advantage of this parental control app on your journey to the safe digital life of your kids. Of course, all the methods mentioned in this article have proven effective, but the use of such software multiplies the safety of your kid.