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Other Things You Can Do - Our Tips for Parents

In many situations, children and teenagers require protection; responsible parents know and do everything in their power to achieve safety in all circumstances. The mobile phone is now a blessing for many parents from a safety perspective as they can now get in contact with their child at any time should any case of urgency occur. However, like so many other things in life, a mobile phone can also pose certain risks if used incorrectly. We have therefore compiled some tips for parents on what can be done to raise awareness of responsible mobile phone use by children.

Speaking is Golden

Children and teenagers are by nature curious, eager to play and want to test everything especially with the use of mobile phones. They very frequently know and use the technical opportunities offered by a mobile phone more intensively and with greater skill than adults. It is particularly important that you have regular detailed talks with your children on the usage as well as the dangers arising from using mobile phones. Critical content such as, "grooming" (harassment through third parties), "bullying" (bullying via mobile phone) and "happy slapping" (shooting and distribution of violence) amongst others have appeared and turned into noticeable phenomena. Children and teenagers are generally not conscious of the rapid and vast networks used for communicating through mobile phones and are accordingly unable to recognize the consequences this can have for the persons affected.

An option is to have your child explain its mobile phone to you. This will not only enhance the child's self-confidence but will also show you how adept the junior is in handling mobile devices and where possible lacks of information can be. It is best to always be open to any questions or problems your child may have so that if some issue arises he or she will turn to you rather than friends at school.

Using Technology Sensibly

One of the simplest precautionary measures starts with the mobile phone itself. On one hand, you should select the simplest mobile phone for your child. A mobile phone without a camera or infrared or Bluetooth interface cannot be used for swapping undesirable video clips or images easily and for free. If your child has a technically more sophisticated device, it is important to disable and filter features available with the phone. Almost every mobile phone provides security settings that can be protected by a PIN to block, for example, Bluetooth or WAP connections and even SMS and camera functions. In addition, security software can be inexpensively and easily downloaded online and used for many models. If you do not feel sufficiently technically skilled to do this, your mobile phone dealer will be able to provide some assistance. Jesta Digital also offers various protection measures on its portals.

You should at the same time explain to your child the different technical opportunities for cost savings. For example, data can be transmitted by Bluetooth or data cable instead of by SMS that is subject to a charge.

The Right Tariff

Mobile phone is important but you also need to consider your decision on the right tariff. It is probably best if you choose a prepaid service that allows you to credit amounts flexibly, so you are always able to have costs under control and are able to limit together with your children how much money is spent on the phone. If you prefer a contract, make sure you obtain the right information as many mobile phone providers now offer special tariffs for children and teenagers that contain both blocking features for certain services and allow a budget limit to be defined.

If you decide to allow your children the usage of mobile internet, please also ensure that the data transmission costs in the chosen tariff are not too high and review cost saving data packages, providers of prepaid services also offer suitable low-price deals.

Furthermore, mobile phones' blocking functions are provided by every large mobile operator. Both call number restrictions (also available for SMS messages), expensive service numbers and data traffic can all be deactivated very easily, your mobile phone dealer can advise you on this.

On top of all these settings on the mobile phone as well as the offers of operators Jesta Digital also provides various possibilities to limit access of children to certain content: check it out here.