GOODYEAR, Ariz. - Given the circumstances surrounding the most recent alleged incident involving a Goodyear teacher and one of her students, experts like Ken Colburn are urging parents to reconsider how they're monitoring their teens tech activity.
Parents can pinpoint what their kids are doing in the digital world. In fact, we're told the parents of the victim in this case were alerted to the apparent inappropriate messages exchanged through an app. Colburn said that's something we can all be watching for.
“It's OK. It's not snooping. It's just sharing and making sure you're staying safe,” he said.
Colburn is with Data Doctors, a computer repair and data recovery service. He says they've seen more worried parents in recent years coming in with questions about their teens' tech use.
“You've got to start early, have the frank discussions about the dangers and the open discussion about, 'I'm supposed to be able to see what you're doing,'” he said.
Colburn said the tough part for Mom and Dad is understanding their child's phone and the apps installed on them.
“You can go from basic keywords that basically will trigger an alert to basically everything that was typed on that phone today could be sitting in a file for Mom and Dad to review at the end of the night,” Colburn said.
Apps like Net Nanny, Norton Family and FamilyTime help with monitoring, he says though parents need to do their homework on what security features they prefer.
“Unfortunately, there's not a one-size-fits-all, so it's up to the parents to understand to what do I want to do, because in some cases you can get overbearing, depends on your relationship with your child,” he said.
Colburn said Data Doctors has seen more parents come in, asking for help, sorting through apps for both apple and android devices.
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