Consistently managing your kids screen time is a seemingly impossible task. Determining how much or when it’s OK is problematic as the screens play a diverse role in your child’s life including being used for social contact, leisure time, homework, research and study, babysitting and plain old time wasting. Depending on their age and stage each of these uses may be of more relevance at different times.
It’s not just the kid’s phones either – it’s their laptops, the family PC, the gaming console, the family iPad and even their internet capable kindles that also needs to be taken into account. Where there’s a will to get online there’s definitely a way!
We have all seen and heard opinions on how much is too much screen time, the horrors of what kids may stumble across or be subjected to, and the emergence of worrying negative effects on behaviour after extended screen time. In addition, parents also are confronted by the risk of the home network being compromised.
We are concerned about the risks of screen use – but can feel powerless or confused about how to actually easily manage it without conflict.
The simple solution
The whimsically named Fingbox is an easy-to-use device that has a range of features to help you manage your children online and also the threats to your internet safety at home.
Key features:
• Fingbox is easy to set up and use (Plug and Play, online in less than a minute)
• You are able to block a device from internet access. This can be on demand or at prescheduled times and can be done remotely (even when you are at work). You can block a particular device from accessing the internet over a fixed period or for a few minutes
• For those children who thrive with clear boundaries, you can set daily schedules of internet access
• Fingbox will watch over your home network, detect intruders, block devices and analyse the quality of your Wi-Fi and internet connection
• If you ever get frustrated that you have rung, texted, messaged and snapchattted your child to check they are home safely only to be ignored, the ability to remotely see who is using the home network (including which of their friends) and to receive alerts will be welcome
• One off purchase price – there are no ongoing subscription costs
These features will allow you to easily manage your children’s devices and the home network without conflict – no more dragging the phone from unwilling fingers!
Fingbox can allow children to become used to having no internet access as a ‘go to’ and in so doing, encourage them to enjoy other activities and family time.
Visit Fingbox online for full details on its features and you can also join the Fingbox Facebook group to connect with other parents managing the screen challenges in their home.
Sounds like a good product for the monitoring potential. We aren’t too concerned about screen time but rather the quality of the things they are watching or doing. My eldest is pretty good and if something comes on that she feels is inappropriate, she’ll turn it off. But my youngest doesn’t always understand. At the moment, we have moved her computer into the lounge for better monitoring but it would be good to use something for when we aren’t in the lounge – like when she wakes up at 4am and goes to play Roblox….
Fingbox would be a waste of time on us and we do not allow our children to have alot of screen time as it is. I really don’t see much of a benefit in parking children in front of devices, I prefer good old fashioned playing and interaction 🙂
I love the sound of fingbox but $209 seems quite a lot to spend on one. I will look into it a bit more I think as you need to make sure it’s great before buying. With 3 kids and iPads it can be hard to get them of them at times and we end up locking them away so they can’t access them at all.
This sounds like the perfect thing for my kids. They are so hard to get off their tablets. It wouldn’t be so bad if they were learning but it’s always you tube videos or subway surf. Must definitely try this one out. Great idea 💡
Great idea 🙂 we let our 5 year old use our Tablet, but she is only allowed an hour max at a time (and that’s usually once a day and sometimes not at all). She occasionally uses my cellphone to play a My Little Pony Game I have downloaded on it when we are out, but again not very often. We just distract her with playing with Lego or her MLP’s or drawing or something else. We found that when she was having a bit more screen time her behaviour changed, so we cut it right back and it worked 🙂