Kids today are growing up in a world filled with new dangers. While kidnapping and roadside accidents are still concerns for parents, by far the greatest threat to a child’s safety comes from digital technology, primarily cell phones. Fortunately, kids smartwatches can help keep your children safe while allowing you to keep in touch with them.
A kids smart watch is a good alternative to a smartphone for kids ages 5 - 11, because it protects them from online predators. The numbers are shocking: 27% of kids will receive sexually explicit messages before age 15, 40% of children chat to strangers online, 15% actually tried to meet up with a stranger they met online, and 700,000 kids are abused every year, 90% of the time by a close relative in their family.
For this reason, it’s recommended that parents wait until their child is at least 12 to get them a smartphone. However, a kids smart watch can allow safe, limited calling without exposing your child to the dangers of a smartphone.
5 Kids' Smart Watch Features that Can Help Safeguard Your Child
1. Instant communication
At the tap of a button, you can contact your child with voice or video calling. Children can also reach out to mom, dad, or any other family member or trusted friend who has been added to the watch’s secure phonebook. This means that you can talk to your kids whenever you want, and they can call their friends from school. However, strangers can’t contact your child for any reason.
Parents set up the contacts list in the COSMO Mission Control app, which is easy to use with your new kids smartwatch. Simply go into the contacts list and add friends and family members so your kids can communicate with them instantly. You can also select different types of contacts, such as family members with the Mission Control app and those without. Additionally, you can restrict the type or duration of communication for different contacts, such as limiting some to voice calling.
Some kids smart watches, such as COSMO’s own flagship kids smartwatch, also have an SOS calling function, which prompts the watch to immediately call the parent’s smartphone—a vital feature in case of emergency. This is another feature you can set up in the Mission Control app.
2. GPS location
With a 4G kids smart watch’s GPS capabilities, you can see your child’s location any time of day. Is she in school when you expect? Is he at his friend’s house like he said he’d be? Knowing where your child is offers peace of mind and, more importantly, allows you to monitor potential threats or risky behavior.
Many parents want their kids to have the freedom to walk to the bus stop on their own, or explore the neighborhood with friends. But for busy parents, it isn’t easy to keep track of where the kids are. Being able to track your child’s whereabouts helps make sure they stay healthy and safe, and provides you with peace of mind when they go out to play. Now if you can’t find your child, you can log onto the Mission Control app and immediately get a real-time location for them.
Remember that not every GPS tracker for kids is the same. Some only provide a recent location every fifteen minutes or so. But if you’re trying to find your child, you need a more recent update than that! With the COSMO JrTrack™ kids smart watch, you’ll always have the most up-to-date information on your child’s location.
3. Geo-fencing
Another potentially life-saving feature is geo-fencing. Utilizing the smartwatch’s GPS chip the accompanying smartphone app can set up geo-fenced safe zones using your kids smart watch.
How do you do this? Simply go into the Mission Control app, click on Settings, and select Safe Zones. Then add locations like your home, the babysitter’s house or daycare center, your child’s school, their friends’ homes, etc. You’ll define the radius of each zone and give it a name.
Next, you can choose to receive alerts if your child leaves a safe zone during a specified time, such as if they leave school early. If your child leaves the safe zone, the GPS tracker for kids pings your phone with an alert, so you can call them and find out what happened.
4. Limited texting
Texting – a great way to keep in touch but also extremely distracting. The best kids smartwatches solve this dilemma by controlling the types of messages your child can send.
They can record short voice messages, which will be sent to the app on your phone, or they can choose an emoji to let you know how they’re feeling. Parents can also enable “classroom time,” which limits the watch functions that can be used. This reduces the child’s screen time and prevents them from spending too much time texting before they’re ready.
Although your child can’t send text messages, you as a parent can use all methods of SMS communication: traditional text messaging, voice chats, and emojis.
5. Locked-down Internet
For all its many uses—up-to-the-second news, Amazon, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, etc.—the internet is a minefield for young children. According to the Crimes against Children Research Center at UNH, child sexual abuse cases are on the rise.
That’s not the only danger. More and more kids are taking bullying into the cyber world, going after their victims on social media. Plus the internet is full of spam and malware for everyone. The fact is that younger children shouldn’t be on social media, and should only use the internet with the supervision of a trusted adult.
Limiting a child’s unsupervised internet access is critical. This means giving them communication devices that have zero internet or social media connection. Kids smart watches like the COSMO JrTrack™ are completely firewalled to block internet access and social media, so strangers can’t get to your child.
A smart watch for kids helps you limit your child’s exposure to potential online predators by completely blocking internet browsing access.
Parents are becoming more aware of the imminent dangers posed to children by open internet access. But at the same time, kids are getting internet-capable cell phones at younger and younger ages.
This counter-intuitive trend points to the desire parents have to stay in contact with their child throughout the day. Communication is key to child safety—but using a cell phone defeats the purpose if it allows you kids unrestricted internet access.
In 2020, child safety experts anticipate a massive shift toward internet-locked devices, like the COSMO Smartwatch. New technologies and services like this will start to combat the trend of online child abuse.
A Kids Smartwatch is Your Best Ally for Their Safety
From a young school age, your kids will be safest with a smartwatch. Aside from real time communication, you are alerted when your kids go beyond your declared safe zones, and you protect them from the dangers of the internet. Calling is limited to those on your approved contacts list, so you know your child isn’t dealing with robocalls or inappropriate messages.
The GPS tracker allows you to locate your child instantly if you can’t find them, then the smart watch calling features put you in immediate contact with them. Kids can make calls, but can’t text, which limits the amount of time they spend staring at a screen.
Furthermore, unlike phones which they can lose, a kid's smartwatch is more secure as it is a wearable gadget. Get them their kids smartwatch today and have peace of mind to let your kids go about safely.
