Your ultimate guide to Snapchat's parental control
Snapchat is one of the most popular messaging apps among today’s young netizens. It is especially appealing to teenagers for its unique feature. One of them is this: Once a viewer views any picture or video content, it automatically disappears from his or her feed. Youngsters also prefer Snapchat for its filters, doodles, multiple game options and special effects (lenses), that keep updating every alternate day, making the act of clicking and sharing pictures far more engaging. However, due to its fleeting nature, parents often worry that their kids may end up posting or viewing inappropriate content. So, we guide you through the parental control features that will help you protect your teens from the dark side of the cyber world.
How to protect your youngster on Snapchat
Parental control is an in-built feature on Snapchat. This makes monitoring teenagers’ activities easier than the parents imagine. By activating the parental control, you can monitor your child’s contact list, what they view or share on the app and what viewers get to see on your child’s profile. There’s also a third-party app that Snapchat supports called Secure Teen that parents can install to keep track of their child’s Snapchat activities. Here are a few basic steps that you can take as a parent to ensure proper parental control over their teen’s Snapchat account.
Block suspicious intruders or even harmful strangers: This is one of the most popular parental control features on Snapchat. It blocks suspicious users, both acquaintances and strangers, so that they are unable to contact your child or view what he or she has shared on his or her account. This setting can be applied by selecting gear icon on the profile page, followed by clicking on the ‘Contact Me’ option and finally selecting ‘My Friends’ under it. But of course, to make this work, you need to make your kids understand not to accept random friend requests. You can also choose ‘My Friends’ option under the ‘Who can view my story’ column for extra security.
Hide your child’s location: In order to protect your child from any physical harm, choose the hide ‘My current location’ option on your child’s Snapchat account. This feature can easily be activated by clicking on the gear icon on the profile and selecting ‘Ghost mode’ under ‘See my location’ category. This will keep your child safe at all times.
Prevent access to your child’s mobile number: By limiting access to your child’s cell phone number on Snapchat, you can ensure that strangers or harmful acquaintances are unable to locate his Snapchat account. This feature can be activated by clicking on the gear icon on the profile page and unchecking the box that reads ‘Let others find me using my mobile number’ option under the category ‘Mobile Number.’
Report harmful contents: Parents can remotely take over their child’s Snapchat account and report whenever they come across inappropriate or offensive contents. This can easily be done by selecting the flag icon on the profile page and clicking ‘Report’ on that specific post.