My Tech Solution to Our Teen Internet Issues

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Hi, everyone! This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and today I'm going to share my technology solution for the Internet issues we face in my house with 2 teenagers.

There are really two issues that I wanted to address. The first is that now that my kids are a little older, I needed to /filter out adult content/. Even if they weren't actively searching for porn, it was way too easy to stumble on inappropriate stuff on the Internet. The second issue is that, like many teens, my kids were becoming entirely /too dependent on screen time/. They were ALWAYS on their phones. I felt like they were missing out on things that happen organically when you aren't being entertained constantly: conversation, creativity, and just smelling the roses to name a few.

Okay -- so that should be pretty easy, right? Just 2 things to control and there were plenty of products available that did exactly what I wanted. But hold up -- whatever solution I had needed to work not only in my house, but also outside the house when they had cellular access. Clearly I needed a table:


At home (Computers & iPhone) Cellular (iPhone only)
Filter Adult Content Koalasafe iPhone Restrictions
Limit Screentime Koalasafe Verizon's Familybase
* OpenDNS for other Internet-connected devices at home

Home was easy. When the kids' devices were connected to wifi, I could use /Koalasafe/ -- the router-based Internet control product. I have in-depth explainer videos about each of these products, which I will link to at the end of this video.

It was tougher to control once the kids were out of the house and using a cellular network. Since I only needed to worry about the kids' phones, I decided to use the /built-in iPhone restrictions/ to filter adult content. And then, when it came to controlling screentime on the cellular network, I decided that as long as I limited the amount of data each kid used per month, I would be okay with giving them control over when the data was used. In other words, my daughter could choose to use all of her data for the month in one day by watching an hour's worth of a Netflix show and my son could budget his throughout the month by only using it for texts and occasional Snapchats. I didn't really care as long as they didn't go over the monthly allowance of 1.5GB per kid, which I limited through /Verizon's Familybase/ product.

I also use /OpenDNS/ on our main parent wifi at home to filter adult content for when the kids happen to be using my computer or any of the other Internet-connected devices that we have.

I'll admit my 3-Pronged solution is a little complicated. Of the 2 problems I had, clearly filtering out adult content was more important. Limiting screentime was more of a "nice to have." So, if you are just looking for a simple solution to filter content, I would suggest two free services: OpenDNS for your home router and for iOS users, the iPhone's built-in parental restrictions for outside your wifi. Android users can use any of a number of content filter apps available including ShieldMyTeen, Norton Family Control or DNS Changer.

At home
(Computers & iPhone) Cellular (iPhone only)
Filter Adult Content OpenDNS iPhone Restrictions or Droid apps

My newest challenge is how to do a better job limiting TV watching through smartTVs and Roku, but at least it's on a big screen in the center of our house, which feels more family-oriented. Let me know if you have any good solutions for that!

Leave your questions, thoughts and experiences in the comments section. And thanks for watching!

[whitemiata]

Hi! Thanks for your informative videos on KoalaSafe and OpenDNS. I have a quick question... did you configure KoalaSafe to use OpenDNS as the DNS server or is that even possible? Or does KS have it's own that you deem just-as-good or better?