Parental Control vs. Spy Apps: What’s a Healthy Level of Monitoring?

Spy apps may look like parental controls, but they’re far more invasive. As a parent, you want to keep your child safe, but spy apps tend to elicit a negative response that can lead kids to find more extreme ways to exert their privacy and independence.

On the other hand, parental control apps facilitate conversations between parents and their children on healthy tech habits, appropriate content, and personal safety. A good parental control app offers more monitoring for younger children but grows to allow tweens and teens the privilege of privacy they crave as they get older.

Let’s break down the differences, what you should look for, and what other resources are available to create a secure and trusting relationship between you and your child.

Spy apps vs. parental controls

Spy apps are invasive. They allow you to see everything on the device where they’re installed, including screen recordings, text messages, and even video chats. While you may think this level of surveillance is justified, it’s been shown to create a breakdown of the parent-child relationship. [1]

Parental controls allow your child the freedom to have privacy and autonomy while also helping them learn to navigate our tech-dependent world. Some of the best parental control apps even give you conversation topics to start an open dialogue with your child. These build trust, responsibility, and healthy habits.

There are a variety of categories that parental control apps monitor without becoming too invasive.

What a parental control app can do

While installing a spy app is unnecessary, a parental control app will offer better features more suited for ensuring child safety. Here are the following features you can expect from a parental control app:

Content filtering

This is especially important for children under 12 who have internet access. There’s a lot of inappropriate content online that younger children shouldn’t be exposed to. Content filtering can block specific websites or keywords to prevent your child from seeing them.

In addition to content filtering, discussing with your children what is and isn’t healthy for them to see can empower them to make those decisions for themselves, even if something slips through the filters.

App monitoring

Like content filtering, this helps shield children from inappropriate content by restricting what apps can be installed. App monitoring can also give parents peace of mind by sending alerts if it senses cyberbullying, groomers, or sexual predators, as well as language surrounding self-harm.

Apps like YouTube are notoriously difficult to filter, so having extra help via app monitoring can ease your anxieties about your children accessing inappropriate content.

Time management

Technology is addictive, especially to children’s developing brains. A parental control app will help you set reasonable limits to give kids a much-needed break, even if it isn’t wanted.

Many parents want their children to have a mobile phone in school for security reasons but don’t want them to have access to distractions during class. Time management can turn off the phone entirely or disable most functions but leave safety measures in place.

Social media monitoring

Social media can become a full-blown addiction for children if not used responsibly. [3] In addition, it’s a hotbed of cyberbullying, sexual content, and self-harm. On the other hand, it can facilitate connections, especially for kids who don’t have strong social outlets. It also offers educational content, the ability to meet like-minded individuals, and provides a platform for self-expression.

A good parental control app will help you teach your child self-regulation and the ability to identify toxic people and behaviors.

GPS location tracking

As kids get older, they want more freedom. They may also be involved in more extracurricular activities. GPS location tracking features vary but can include alerts on the child’s current location or when they leave a sanctioned area. This feature gives parents peace of mind while also allowing a child to test their independence.

Device control

Despite your best efforts to teach your child self-control and moderation, sometimes you just need to shut it all down. This feature lets you control how the phone or computer is used, whether as a consequence of action or as a way to help your kid detox from their device.

Safe searches

The internet can be a very adult place. Safe search features on parental control apps allow you to filter out keywords, categories, adult language, and other specifics. Most apps allow you to block specific keywords or topics and offer content filters based on age that grow with your child.

Call and text monitoring

This advanced feature isn’t offered on all parental control apps but is very useful. Younger children should have access to only trusted adults and some peers, which this feature helps establish. For teens, this can catch sexual predators, bullies, groomers, and any talk of self-harm.

We like being able to disable most of the phone’s functionality during school and sleep but still allow authorized, safe adults who can be reached at all times. This feature also gives you that ability.

What are some downsides of using a spy app?

Spy apps have many downsides. Not only are they wildly intrusive, but they actually degrade the parent-child relationship if a child discovers this type of app on their device. If you trust your child enough to give them a laptop or mobile phone, you should also trust them enough to discuss what is and isn’t appropriate.

The key to teaching your child good online safety is to establish a good connection with them. Spy apps can hurt the relationship you have with your child.

Privacy

Part of growing up is learning how to safeguard yourself and your privacy. Parents need to balance what they monitor against a child’s natural need for privacy. A spy app destroys privacy by invading every aspect of the device it is installed on.

Trust

Most parents strive for an open and honest relationship with their children. You hope that your child trusts you enough to come to you with their problems. You also want to trust your child to make smart and safe decisions when they’re away from you.

Spy apps can destroy a child’s trust in their parents, often making them feel they must go to outside sources for help with problems or decisions.

Safety

Spy apps monitor a lot. If you have access to live real-time information on what your child is doing on their phone, including secret access to their screen to see exactly what they’re doing, then so will any hacker. That much information can be very dangerous in the wrong hands.

No one is safe from hacking, and several spy apps don’t even use encryption when transmitting sensitive information. This means your child’s location, interests, and most personal details can be intercepted by anyone.

Are spy apps spyware?

Spyware is a form of malware, malicious software meant to cause harm that secretly tracks someone’s activity without their knowledge. Based on that definition, a spy app could be considered spyware in certain circumstances. It’s malicious if installed on the devices of anyone over the age of 18. Since 18 is considered a legal adult in the U.S., spy apps placed without the person’s knowledge are illegal.

Spy apps are also intrusive and a huge violation of privacy. While parents of children under the age of 18 have the right to monitor their child’s digital world, this level of surveillance is downright creepy.

Are there spy apps for parents?

We like to discuss finding the right software for you and your family, and we are against spy apps. Not only are they dangerous, but they also contribute to a breakdown in communication between families. Open and honest communication with your children will create a much better environment.

On the other hand, parental control apps are useful tools that help keep your children safe and teach them healthy habits. You can set up screen time management, filter content, check their GPS location, and get alerts to serious health and safety issues that may affect your child.

Best apps for children’s online safety

These are some of our favorite parental control apps. They strike a nice balance between privacy and protection and come with various features and extras that you may find important. Bark offers a phone with its preinstalled software, Aura provides cyberbullying alerts, and Norton Family can be wrapped into Norton’s other protections.

Parental Controls
Best for	Best overall	Best bundled identity protection	Best for bundled antivirus protection
Price	Plan costs $14.00/mo	Starts at $8.25/mo (billed annually)	Plans costs $49.99/yr
Learn more	Get Bark Premium	Get Aura Parental Controls	Get Norton Family

How to choose the best parental control app

The best parental control apps give you a lot of features without becoming too intrusive. You’ll want comprehensive coverage for multiple devices, a dashboard to view your alerts and notifications easily, and useful features that grow with your child. Below is a list of some of the most important features to consider when choosing parental control software:

• Price of the app
• Device limit and whether you can customize multiple devices at once
• Override ability for emergency situations
• How intrusive the app is, such as how much it slows the device down
• GPS location features
• Self-harm and sexual predator alerts
• Features that grow with your child
• Parent blogs that help facilitate family conversations
• Extras like identity theft protection
• Cyberbullying alerts
• App blocking and control
• Screen time limits

How to keep children safe online

Part of teaching your child good online habits is also teaching them about the dangers of being on the internet. Parental controls can shield your children, but learning how to navigate the internet securely without them is a skill they’ll carry into adulthood. Below are ways to help boost online security:

• Talk about online safety and data protection
• Get a password manager
• Get an ad blocker
• Ignore and delete unfamiliar numbers or emails
• Don’t follow unfamiliar links
• Don’t accept friend requests from strangers
• Learn about phishing tactics
• Turn off location sharing on social media apps
• Disable AirDrop or set it to Only Contacts

FAQs

Bottom line

Spy apps are intrusive and cause trust issues, while parental controls help foster reasonable tech use and protect kids. If you want a healthy relationship with your child and want to help them learn good habits they’ll carry into adulthood, you should use only reputable parental control apps.

The best parental controls offer a comprehensive dashboard with alerts, action items, and materials to facilitate conversations around appropriate content and screen time usage. Technology is unavoidable in our world, but you can teach your kids to have a healthy balance while keeping them safe.

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On Bark Premium's website

Parental Controls

Bark Premium

• Robust parental controls to track, monitor, and limit device usage
• Machine learning catches the latest slang and keywords
• Screens content across 19 categories
• Activity can only be viewed if it’s triggered

Author Details

Mary James

About the Author

Mary is a seasoned cybersecurity writer with over seven years of experience. With a B.S. in Liberal Arts from Clarion University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Point Park University, she educates audiences on scams, antivirus software, and more. Her passion lies in educating audiences on helpful ways to protect their data.