Author name: Jenny Nicole

Child Monitoring

Keep a Watchful Eye on Your Eggs this Easter with XNSPY!

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Easter is moving closer and closer which means that spring break is also coming to an end, which then means that your teenager is trying to make the most out of these last few days, or maybe they’re not and they’re staying in at home, but both will eventually bring you stress. If you’re the parent of a few teens, this time can truly be miserable. But not fear, we have a few helpful tricks and tips for you to get through the Easter weekend. A Few Events to Get You through the Weekend Planning for the weekend maybe stressful, but Easter events have already been arranged for you. To have your child last few days be eventful, you can take them to Spring Camp, a little vacation to the tropics and a visit to the local Easter Day and consequent parade should fulfill their appetite.  This way you’ll know where they are and you’ll be sure that they’re having a good time. Easter Season is Festival Season Spring is the time when music festivals are in full swing. Events like Lollapalooza, Coachella etc usually happen around this time, and what would be a better way to spend your vacation than to catch your favorite artist? Well, a few problems with festivals is that they harbor an unhealthy culture of substance abuse.  You can still send your child to these events but keep an eye on them with a cellphone tracking app i.e XNSPY. And speaking of tracking… Use a Cellphone Tracking app It is SO easy to lose your devices in large events or gatherings, you’ll lose something and not realize it until you’re home.  A good exercise is to have a cellphone tracker installed on all of the devices you take to these events. It will save you a lot of trouble and money if you happen to lose a device. It is also helpful to have if you aren’t physically supervising your children. If you aren’t there and they feel like they can get away with something they shouldn’t, use your tracking app to shut em’ down.  And speaking of keeping an eye out… Be Aware The Easter Weekend is notorious for encouraging irresponsible behavior with a heavy tendency towards underage drinking and drug abuse. The sense of freedom at times may get to their heads and what leads them to do stupid things, at stupid times. You’ll have to up your game in watching over and protecting your children. Plan their trips/events, have curfews, take their friends phone numbers and most importantly, have a mobile tracker app. A tracker app will help you track their location in real time (and will later have a log of the same locations), it will give you the ability to view their call and message history (with logs). It will also allow you to set safe and danger zones. If a devices strays into marked unsafe zone, you will be notified immediately. Practice vigilance but let them have fun, because after the break ends they’ll have a lot of stress because of school. Make the most of Easter with your family! Happy Easter!

Child Control, Child Monitoring

When the Laws of the Land Can’t Ensure My Children’s Safety in Schools

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I’m not one to get political. I don’t post long opinion pieces on my Facebook or have unnecessary debates with people in the comments section. I don’t identify with any particular ideology, neither am I rather informative about what wing stands for what. I am however a parent and the events involving school security make me nervous. Like many parents, I have started to wonder if schools are safe for my kids anymore. When I was a child, going to school was a different experience altogether. We would complain about waking up in the morning and having to spend the long hours with boring teachers. We would laugh and play. We would make friends. We would have fire drills every once in a while to teach us safety precautions. Once, when the news reported the possibility of an earthquake, we had an evacuation drill to teach kids what they should do. Basically, the things we learnt to prepare ourselves against was Mother Nature itself—earth and wind and fire. Never once in my school years were we taught to protect our school walls from human beings. So when I think about my son going to school now, in times where anyone—and I mean anyone—can breach security lines and wreak havoc in a place that should be a haven for learning and education, it chills me to the bone. I am quite frankly afraid of it. I don’t know if you remember, but there was an episode on FOX’s Glee on this subject once. They called it “Shooting Star” (perhaps in poor taste), but it tackled the sheer terror that gun violence can cause in schools. For some people—especially for Sandy Hook parents—such a depiction was too soon. Mind you, this episode aired on April 11, 2013. It is now 2017 and I wish I could say that things have changed. The truth is, my children are just as vulnerable to such horrible incidents every single day that they go to school. Nothing in the laws has changed. There exists more uncertainty in our political front. There develop more and more tensions between the people and those whose job it is to protect them. So no, sir; I don’t believe my children are safe in schools at all. But I also have to make a choice. I can choose to home school my children, but then what? Can I keep son locked up inside our home to protect him from the rest of the big bad world? Of course not. Is any other public place that is safer than schools? I can’t even say. So I choose to let my child have the experience that every kid in America deserves to have—to go to school to get an education and to build a future. I can’t go to school with them either. But I can still be connected with them while they’re there on some level. It’s why I decided that I’m going to put the GPS tracking app on my son’s phone so that I am able to track him. Because while it won’t protect him, it makes me a feel a bit better, knowing where he is at all times. That’s exactly why I am tracking him with this mobile spy app now. I want to know whether he has gotten home from school safely while I am at work. I want to know if he is at football practice, or if he has gone to grab a scoop of ice cream with his friends, or if he is at the camping trip and staying within the secure bounds. It just makes me feel a lot better being in the know. It is much, much better than not knowing. Being on the outside, wondering where on earth my son is when I can simply find out. I know a lot of parents don’t agree with such close monitoring and tracking of their children. I try not to be too intrusive. With this app, my son doesn’t know that I’m tracking him or that I am constantly worrying about him. I want him to be able to live his life carefree and have all the right experiences that would help him grow. I want him to know that he cannot live his life in fear. He should be facing the world head on without thinking about everything that could go wrong. I’m the dad—it is my job to worry about my kid’s safety. It is his job to live his youth to the fullest. My GPS tracking app is something of a parental security blanket. Do you remember how Harry Potter would look at the Marauder’s Map even after he had left Hogwarts, just to see if his friends were still there? That’s what I do. Whenever I am nervous, I curb my paranoia to take a look at the map to see if my son’s still in school or practice or wherever he ought to be at the time. I will probably never stop worrying as the parent, but I can make myself feel better. So I do.  

Child Control

The Definite Guide to Making it Through the Spring Break Without Any Incidents

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Parents, by nature, tend to be worriers. However, when the Spring Break looms large, the worrying hits al all new high. My coworkers who have teens of their own are already planning the impending spring break getaways where they get to break free from responsibility, even if just for a little bit. Just looking at those parents preparing for what’s to come is giving me anxiety and I can’t even imagine going through it myself. Something a coworker of mine told me recently, “Jen, what do I do? All my children want to go out with their own little group of friends, and if could split myself into three and follow them all around, I would. I feel like I’m losing my mind and I haven’t even had my morning cup of coffee yet.” All I could do was provide some empathy. But what she said made me wonder… could she follow them around if she wanted to? Fact is she can’t, but that doesn’t mean she should not use the right tools and proper planning. What I can do for her is turn her from a worrier to a warrior, and I think all you parents should follow my lead. What you need to do is mobile monitor, which means follow them around—without actually being there with them. Sit back and enjoy the rest of your Spring Break, no problem. So when I offered her the solution, my coworker decided to take this blog head on (I mean, she works for this place and it is fun to have some cross-departmental fun, isn’t it?). Here’s Sally, our graphic girl, about to hit you up with some facts. How Do I Track My Kids Through the Spring Break? How’s it going guys—this is Sally. I’ve just realized that writing the beginning bit of a blog is really awkward. I’m much more used to producing intros for videos and “How’s it going” was perhaps a bit clumsy as far as the written word goes. But I promise to be much more eloquent from here on out. So, I tried mobile tracking for my kids and I’m going to continue doing it throughout the Spring Break. (Ultram) Why? How sure are you that your kid isn’t going to sneak out way past their curfew? When my boys have put on their adventure mode, they get rather reckless, and get a sense of bravado. I suppose it comes with the fact that on this night, pretty much everyone around them is being just as reckless. I feel like Americans take it upon themselves to get drunk for the nation; such is our sense of patriotism. But I’m pretty sure when they tell me they’re just going to try “a  bit of surfing and be back safely”, they are straight up lying to my face. It is in situations like these that I have to turn to my mobile tracker. There is a lot of trouble that boys their age can get themselves into in this day and age. I know boys that have been wrongly convicted for drug dealing, or got too adventurous and tried shop lifting simply for fun. I don’t want my boys getting in that sort of trouble or mixing in with the wrong crowd. Moreover, I know that on this day, kids are going to experiment with funny narcotics when they’re on their own. Not the kind that they’ll have to reach out to someone to buy, but the DIY kinds. This is something I have strictly told my sons to stay away from. I don’t want them dealing with or handling homemade concoctions because they are simply not safe. So I use my tracker to keep a well eye on their behavior. How Does XNSPY Mobile Tracker Work? What you’ve got to do is install the app on your child’s phone. Now I know for a fact kids these days don’t leave anywhere without their phones. I know what you’re thinking. There is no way kids will ever agree to having a tracker in their phones so their parents can snoop in on them. But the best part about XNSPY is that it is totally discreet. It works on the child’s phone invisibly. They can go out to their little barbecue parties or go see the parade, or wherever and I’ll know Their real time location Their complete location history If they’ve got to a dangerous area right from home. They would never ever know the tracker is there! And you can step in if your suspect something is wrong. Apart from this, you can listen into their phone calls any time you like, read their messages as they come and even see their emails. This way you’ll know what plans they are making with their friends and if they are thinking about getting into trouble. What defines trouble? For me, it is meddling with contraband. Like I mentioned before, it means no firecrackers, no booze (not even a tiny sip from someone else’s bottle), and absolutely no drugs. Trouble also means harming others or being a menace to society. I’ve told them that I will find out if they get into mischievous activities such as vandalism, releasing homemade fireworks in places where it is not safe and staying out irresponsibly late. Spring Breaking Needs to Be Easier So I definitely suggest to every parent to mobile monitor, especially on this Spring Break. I make it a point to keep an eye on my children whenever they go out with friends, but even if you don’t do that, try and be more conscious of their activities during the weel. I’ve heard that this year is going to be especially chaotic, so much so that Tampa Bay has released a PSA with safety tips. They’ve even worked and assigned a few officers just to keep an eye on Spring Breaks. One team has been deployed to take care of first aid and the other has been assigned the

Mobile Phone Spy, Mobile Spy

Calling New Users: Here’s What XNSPY Can Do For You!

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So, we are 3 months into the New Year, and guess what? We’ve got another onslaught of brand new users. We couldn’t be happier—like we’ve said countless times before, we love creating a community of internet savvy, digitally aware people. So in today’s blog, I’m going to be speaking to you guys! First things first: welcome aboard. You’ve got so much to learn, and I’m going to give you the gist of some of the things you’ll find useful right away. What Inspired XNSPY? I bet you’ve heard about something about us. We’re known for our app that does a bit of monitoring. Designed specifically for employers to watch over employees and for parents to look after their children, XNSPY monitoring app provides the insight of a person’s smartphone that the authority figure requires to make informed decisions. Take parents, for example. Being at the center of XNSPY’s target market, parents are probably the party that can take the most advantage out of the app’s mechanism. It provides intel on not only SMS messages of the phone, but also texts  spying from other messaging services; like WhatsApp, Viber, Line, Kik or Skype. It even works well on Facebook messenger texts. Imagine what a parent can do with this sort of information. Haven’t you heard of countless cyberbullying instances where the parents didn’t even know that the bane of their kid’s existence was within their smartphones? That they were getting awful messages from their school mates that was driving them to make questionable decisions? See Also: How to Spy On Viber Messages on Android and iPhone? Let me try to illuminate the full potential of a parenting app of this nature. Are you familiar with the story of Amanda Todd? She has now become a modern day case study for parents and children to learn from because she is one of the most publicized instances of extreme cyberbulling. A Canadian 15-year-old, Amanda found herself at the mercy of cyberbullies and online solicitors who threatened her using her own personal photos. The situation became so out of hand that it drove Amanda to suicide—just at the age of 15. Now can you imagine how the situation would have been a little different if Amanda’s parents or guardians were aware of her online activities and the blackmailing messages she was receiving from her cyber-assailant? If her parents had any intel on her phone, they would’ve recognized the fishy situation on the onset and may have stepped in and controlled some of the damage caused by her indiscretion. At the most, they could’ve made sure that all contact from the assailant was suitably blocked so that she did not have to go through the bullying and the mental trauma that led her to think that suicide was the only option. Not every parent will have to face something of this extreme, but every parent must prepare with digital monitoring as if they are. This leads me to believe that using parental apps, specifically those that present the text messages that gives send and receive, is the wise thing to do. But How to Monitor on the Down Low? For starters, XNSPY is quite actionable in that it is a silent application that works in the background of the child’s device. This means it is non-intrusive and discreet. The child does not feel like they are being monitored all the time. This alleviates the stress associated with constant monitoring and helps them in living their life as they may—except you’re watching over them, and only you as the parent have that knowledge. Secondly, it lets you conduct your monitoring commands in a wireless manner. The informational is relayed to you remotely on your online account. See Also : Best Mobile Spy Apps 2018 What’s equally important is that XNSPY gives you the ability to set alarms. You are instantly alerted if there is any suspicious activity going on with your children and their devices. Who decides what activities constitute as suspicious? Why, you do, of course. You can specify certain contacts (numbers, names, email addresses), words and even locations (on the GPS tracker) as suspicious and you get an instant notification, telling you it is time to intervene. Imagine getting a notification on your phone as soon as something has presented even the slightest hint of going awry. Your Crash Course is Almost Done. What you have on your hands with this mobile spying app is a precautionary measure. It isn’t damage control (although it can be). It is not a remedy. It is not even an advisor, telling parents what they need to do next. It is simply something that provides you with information, and leaves it to you to use as a precautionary measure, stepping in at the right times, recognizing digital parenting moments and getting your children involved in protecting their online privacy. So if you want to learn more about the tenacity of the app, you might want to check out our Features Page. It is going to catch you up on the rest of what you’ve been missing!

Child Control, Child Monitoring

Digital Dangers are Evolving and Parents Need to Understand the Complexity of the Situation

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Things were a lot simpler when your child’s life was part of the visible, physical world. Because these days kids live a digital life, too. On Instagram when they document everything they do, or on messages where they are hyper connected. They’ve got an entire way of being behind their smartphone screens, and that’s putting it lightly. So, it is no surprise that over the years, parents have shown an increased level of interest in our iOS tracking software that can monitor that child’s iPhone and iPad. Because it is the only way they can properly monitor their children’s “other” life. Parents that still don’t have their hands on one have a lot of catching up to do. When Parents Don’t Appreciate the Complexity More often than not, a prominent technological gap exists between parents and their kids. This makes it difficult for parents to know exactly what they should be looking for, what the warning signs are, and what they should be teaching their children about online etiquette. Think about it this way: kids tend to be the digital “natives”. They never truly had to “learn” anything about their devices. They have been using it since they were born and thus everything comes naturally to them. Parents on the other hand are digital “immigrants”. They were born well before these devices were invented. Hence they had to learn about them. In many instances, this is what makes parents tech phobic. They are not fully familiar with these devices and what they are used for. This resistance to accepting new inventions creates the gap. Therein lies the problem—when you don’t understand the norms and values of the internet culture, you can’t parent appropriately. It helps when you understand that primarily, the internet has the same problems as the physical world… just in a digital manifestation. So the first thing you need to tell yourself as a parent—simplify it all. There is nothing new that you need to learn. You essentially have the same things to woe over once you’ve picked them out through a mobile monitoring app. Here’s more about them. How Internet Problems are Evolving The most talked about smartphone/internet issue related to cyberbullying. Kids have now taken over social media platforms to be mean to other kids. Be it in the form of a rude comment, defamation, impersonation or exclusion, cyberbullying is a prevalent problem when children and smartphones combine. Understand that children can have similar stressful experiences with bullies on the computer as they do with playground bullies. It is bad enough that it leads to anxiety, depression, even suicide. Kids bullying kids is one thing. Adults grooming minors is an altogether different beast. Imagine your kid trapped in the tentacles of someone older who is weaseling their way into their lives for sexual exploitation. Sounds a lot more sinister, doesn’t it? The thing with grooming that sets it apart from cyberbullying is that it is more subtle in its planning and more patient in its execution. Children don’t realize what’s happening to them—they feel like they’ve made a friend they can confide in, and that’s how they get them. Grooming is slow, grooming can take weeks, months, even years. Grooming is through and it is dangerous. So yes, digital dangers are evolving. This takes me back to the early days of this blog when the kind of stuff I warned parents about was mean comments on Facebook or a bad post on Instagram. As the internet evolves, so do the dangers. The Ever-changing World This is exactly what has made more parents want to get a mobile monitoring app in the first place. They want to be able to see who their kids are talking to on their phones. They want to sieve through the messages that are being left to them—they want a better means of check and balance. There are many apps out there that can help parents attain this. For example, Life360 keeps the entire family on one platform digitally, so kids can reach out to their parents in times of stress. Similarly, XNSPY is a parental control that gives parents an all-access pass to their child’s smartphone. In that way, they can read and set alerts on bullies and their hurtful comments. Considering their child’s mental wellbeing and general happiness is on the line, iOS tracking software like these make a pretty good investment. Parenting is evolving, and the fact that more moms and dads are on the lookout for digital means to look after their children is a step in the right direction. Gen Y are now becoming parents, which means that the digital gap may be closing. However, it goes without saying that the generation gap itself will always exist. The world in which the tech generation, Gen Z exists is one where there have always been iPhones and Instagrams. This only means that the parents now have to be one step ahead. No sitting around being passive anymore.

Employee Monitoring

Are You Being an Abusive Boss Without Realizing it?

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You know what’s worse than getting an earful from your parents in front of your friends? Getting an earful from your boss in front of your colleagues. Think of all the emotions you felt as a child when your parents chose to insult you in front of an audience with whom you had a reputation to uphold. Embarrassment. Shame. Humiliation. Anger. Frustration. You probably felt these emotions all at the same time. Now multiply this feeling by 10. That’s what you’re going to feel as an adult in a workplace where you thought you had a right to dignity and self-respect. Your parents shouldn’t have done that. Your boss shouldn’t do that. Such public outbursts are nothing but a loud expression of an ego trip that is meant to reinforce the fact that they’re the boss and you’re the employee. These ego trips are perhaps directed toward employees that literally have no way out—they’ve got bills to pay, families to take care of so they simply can’t quit because they have been insulted. Or humiliated in front of their colleagues. Or degrades. Or made to feel like they are worthless and not competent enough for their jobs. Or made to feel like they are easily dispensable and replaceable. When you do that as a boss, what you’re essentially doing is being abusive. I was going through the stats of this blog and as I found out that the number of managers and business owners who read this blog has significantly grown. I think it would do us all some good if we reviewed our behavior and relationship with our employees and tried to figure out just where we’re going wrong. It is a Vicious Cycle There has been a lot of research done on how bad managers can have an impact on employee health, on their personal lives and even the overall performance of the company itself. But not many people focus on how bad bosses impact the employee on an individual level. Recently, a study was conducted amongst 250 employees in various different organizations. This study would later go on to be published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. The research found that there is a vicious cycle that is created between bosses that are abusive and employees that go out of their way to please them. At first glance, I feel like it makes sense. If you’re sharp tongued with a boss who is for all intents and purposes an arse, you can expect them to be even more horrible to you. However, the study also found something that is counterintuitive. They found that employees that go beyond the call of duty to please their bosses does nothing to reduce future abusive behavior. Bosses who are abusive don’t respond positively to positive behavior. They don’t respond with compassion or empathy at all—in fact, they just viewed all the extra effort as being part of the regular job. Does this cycle sound familiar to you? Because it really reminds me of anyone who has ever been in an abusive relationship. Sometimes, getting hurt by someone emotionally bonds you to them. Especially when the abuser ensures that their hurtful behavior is intertwined with unexpected little acts of kindness. When someone treats you badly enough, you treasure every little “good” thing that you do. Thus, I feel like what the study found was to be expected—employees will go above and beyond to please the person who has nothing positive to say. Is it Easy to Get Out? That being said, is it ever easy to quit your job because you’ve got a bad boss? Perhaps not. Like we said earlier, such bosses direct their behavior towards employees who really badly need the job. Perhaps they’ve got bills to pay, loans to pay back, mortgages weighing down on them… whatever the reason may be, quitting a job is just not a possibility until they find a new job. And that is exactly what the bosses exploit. In such cases, the only thing that employees can do is find a way to combat said boss. The first thing that employees must understand is that there is no easy way out. Coping becomes hard, especially when you feel trapped. You hate your life in this workplace, but for whatever reason, you can’t leave. So yes, it is not going to be easy. Getting away from the stronghold of an abusive boss with your self-esteem and mental health still intact is no easy feat at all. You Need an Action Plan Next, you need to devise an action plan. Start looking for opportunities within the company. It could be so that your department has a bad boss which does not represent the systems of the rest of the organization. Start exploring other options, as is your right. The other (and perhaps more obvious option) is to speak to your HR about the bad boss’ behavior. I know what you’re thinking—speaking to the HR will essentially make you a snitch. And if that doesn’t bother you, how exactly does one go to the HR and complain about their superiors. How does one even approach the situation? How does one even label someone as their “abuser” without any concrete proof? Perhaps the following infographic will give you a good explanation of it all… One thing that the infographic suggests you do is to prepare yourself with evidence. Perhaps you had an exchange over emails. Keep those emails handy before you step into the office. Perhaps you have evidence of your work. A good idea is to document every incident with dates and specific information so that you do not forget the details when you truly need them. Bosses, Keep it Chill, Please. I suppose the point of this blog is to warn both sides not only to be smart, but also empathetic. There will always be tough days. And there will be days when frustration gets the best of you and you’re not able to cope

Features - New, Parenting

SMS Tracking Was My Foot Through the Door to the World of Digital Parenting

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My favorite kind of XNSPY client accounts are always one in which parents write about how empowered tech monitoring has made them feel. Mothers who felt like they were out of touch begin to realize that they need to be just as up-to-date as the rest of the world. Such is the story of a user who shares her account in her own words… If you’ve never had to take care of teenage boys in your life, then you probably won’t understand the need for tracking text messages. There are so many situations in which it comes in handy that you’d be left wondering why you never thought of it in the first place. The truth is, sometimes we as parents lag far the progressive times. Technology is ever-changing and rapidly evolving. This means that for people like us who existed in a time where there wasn’t much in the way of smart-tech, things can get rather tricky. For instance, I bought my first smartphone in 2014, long after my children had gone through their fair share of Android phones and iPhones. Before that, I was glad using a basic feature phone (or what has now been named the “dumb phone”) because it did what I knew it ought to do: make phone calls and send text messages. So it shouldn’t be too surprising that it took me a while to get to terms with the text messaging norms of today. And it made me realize that if I’m not investing my time and finances in getting the right kind of monitoring equipment to give my children a better quality online life, I’m doing parenting in the modern world wrong. Honestly speaking, I have a lot to learn as a new age mom and I know that phones of today do much, much more than text messaging. But I think you’d agree that it is a good place to start, especially if it means that I’ll learn along the way. Here’s what I do to track my sons using my text message monitoring app. Tracking Down Homework Time Now I’m very particular when it comes to my kids doing their homework. I believe a good amount of self study time is all it takes for you to get good grades. And I want my sons to eventually get into a good college. But I know they won’t be getting any quality studying down if they’re constantly distracted by the beep beep beeping of their phones, telling them they’ve received a text message or the other from their friends. I’ve heard kids of thins generation like to text way more than they like to talk, so I suppose they text all day. With my text message tracker, however, I can make sure they get some studying done responsibly. They know they have to stay away from their phones till their homework is through, or they’ll be getting an earful from me. What’s more is that my tracker helps me differentiate between “productive” texting and “distractive” texting. During study hours, I allow group chats or individual texts that discuss homework, solve queries, or share lesson material. But messages that do anything but that are not allowed. I’d like to clarify here that I am not an unreasonable parent. I don’t ban entertainment websites or gaming hours. I just make it clear that there is a certain time for certain activities. I need to teach my sons how to prioritize the components of their lives aptly while it still counts. See Also: How to spy on Android text messages? Curfew Means Curfew I’m not a fan of my kids staying up late. I think the only way I can raise healthy and successful boys is if they follow the early to bed and early rise rule. This means that I don’t like it if they use their phones in the late hours of the night because they’re too busy texting the Lord knows who. Once again, the text tracker comes into play. I get an alert on my phone which tells me that they’ve sent or received a text message. And that tells me that they are breaking curfew. I check in on them at that time and they know I am disappointed for sure. Offensive Language is Not Appreciated Another thing that I don’t like which teenage boys tend to do is use profanities on their phones and the internet. Now, I’m not about to raise kids that go about using their filthy words to sound cool. So I’ve used the Watchlist feature on my tracker to define offensive words that may come up on their text messages. I like to have conversations with them about how having such a negative influence in their lives is going to ultimately harm their own wellbeing. It is never a good idea for young boys to resort to vulgar, profane language. Trying to be Sneaky, Are We? This is the feature I have the most fun with. Now my boys fight all the time, but when it comes to them sneaking out of the house, they team up better than most NBA players. They lie and cover for their brothers and tell me that he’s gone away to study or practice or whichever. My text message tracker tells me the truth instead. I can read every single message they get, you see. So I know exactly where they are going and who they are going to meet and what it is that they’re planning to do. They can’t lie to me for very long. I’ve Got So Much More to Learn! So all in all, there are many occasions in which I have learnt to make full use of my text message tracking facility. I’ve still got a long way to go before I learn how to track other things as well. I suppose I’m learning on the job. So what if I wasn’t born with the tech savviness that my kids have—I’m catching up

Features - New, Parenting

Instagram Personalities Are Not Real Models for Kids

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Instagram is up in the top five popular social platforms that mostly teenager use. It is a very creative way to take and share selfies and originally was used by photographers to share their work after editing with the creative filters that Instagram offers. However after its October 2010 launch, it evolved into a secondary to Facebook, as we saw more and more teens leaving Facebook to use Instagram. And as with Facebook, there are vulnerabilities to Instagram that parents need to be aware of. Mainly, the ‘Instagram’ Celebrity. What Is An Instagram Celebrity? An Instagram ‘celebrity’ is a person on Instagram who has millions of followers on Instagram and who post pictures of them and their often ‘fabulous’ lifestyle. The pictures they post of themselves are often questionable. At the forefront of these is someone you probably have heard of, someone who took Instagram by storm: Kylie Jenner. But How Are Instagram Celebrities Harmful? These Instagram celebrities set a dangerous precedent to the expectations of impressionable teenagers. What these sort of platforms present is a tool to earn validation from others in the form of ‘likes’ and many of them will copy and compare themselves to others. So who better to copy and compare themselves than Instagram celebrities? People like Kylie Jenner or Dan Belzerian share pictures of them and their lifestyle and no harm on them for doing so, but the influence that they hold through this platform is unreal. Kylie Jenner simply wearing clothes becomes news and so people think, if they can get attention like this, so can we, right? Well, the influence they possess is sometimes unbelievable as several reports of teenagers getting plastic surgeries to look like Instagram personalities. This is not healthy. People will try to replicate Kylie Jenner with what she wears and what she looks like, and if you’re looking to try new fashion trends, all the power to you. However when a fourteen year old post a picture of themselves in the same suggestive mannerisms as these people do, that is where it’s not okay. As A Parent, How Do You Tackle Instagram? Understand Instagram First understand that Instagram is just a platform to share pictures. Many people use it show their photography talents or even to share their lives appropriately, and there is no harm in that. It, as a platform, has probably done more good than harm by encouraging the creative side in people. Secondly, if your child is under 13, they should not even be allowed to browse Instagram as you have to be above 13 to even join (but we all know how websites enforce that rule). Track Who They Follow There are two ways to do this. You can either join Instagram or convince your child to follow you and you them. This is obviously the harder way as many children will be reluctant to have their parents on their social media. The best way to track their activities is through XNSPY. Through XNSPY, you can track their activities, who they follow and what they post. Use XNSPY as a tool to determine if your child uses Instagram as a social platform in a positive way. Talk to Your Child We all understand the need to be validated and accepted, especially in out teenage years. There’s always this confusion and misunderstanding when you’re young and sometimes that leads to regrettable decision. Talk to you child about how Instagram celebrities’ lives are their lives, some would call unrealistic but most importantly, the standards they set are absolutely unrealistic and should not be sought after. Tell your child what Mr. Rodgers once told a generation children : “ I like you just the way you are”.

Child Monitoring, Parental Control Apps

How I XNPY’d Out of My Partner’s Heart

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Well, this isn’t something we were expecting. One of our readers shares with us her shocking story of how XNSPY exposed her to a secret someone really close to her had been hiding. Here is her story in her own words… My boyfriend who shall remain unnamed gifted me a few tech gifts for Valentine’s Day. I’m a tech enthusiast and enjoy the latest technologies. Along with an iPad and Airpods, he gave me this app called XNSPY. I run a software house myself and he thought it would have been useful to monitor all my employees and that managing would become easier for me. Little did he know that his earnest gift would have completely backfired on his situation. He installed the app on my new iPad and showed me all the tips and techniques to fully use the app. What I really liked was having the ability to read messages from several apps including Facebook Messenger. XNSPY With Business I did use the app for its intended purpose, I used the geo-fencing ability along with the realtime tracking the most for my employees and it honestly did help with staying on top with my business. I was able to keep an eye on all my employees and even catch and fire one employee who was stealing our data and selling it off to competitors! From a business point of view, XNSPY had my back. XNSPY With Personal Life I did not however consider it coming in use in my personal life. I don’t know if he did this by mistake but his device was one of the ones I could track. He isn’t very savvy with tech so I’m very sure that it was in fact by mistake. A huge mistake at that. Curiosity got the best of me one day and I peered into his messages. Nothing suspicious was there, just recent texts from me and a few friends I know. Nothing out of the usual. I then checked his Facebook messages and lo and behold, I see not one, but several different women he had been talking to in a very suggestive manner. I read into these messages and he had apparently eve met up with some of these messages. XNSPY revealed more about my ‘relationship’ than I could ever have known myself. I did not go into fit of anger or sadness or anything reactionary at all.  I cooked up a plan. I schemed. I messaged some of the girls he had been contacting, who were also unaware that he was being unfaithful. We planned to meet-up in a café near us, and had one of us, the most recent ‘favorite’ had asked to meet him. And without question or hesitation, he agreed to show up. All went as planned and he showed up and as soon as he saw us, at the end of the booth, he bolted. That was what we planned and expected. We didn’t want any confrontation. I suggested to all of the ladies to get XNSPY, the thing that helped me out in a situation where I didn’t even know I needed help. I would also urge anyone reading this suspicious of their significant other to try out XNSPY, you might have more fun than you think! Does your story need to be heard? Write to us or leave a comment below!

Parental Monitoring, Spying

Online Parenting Shouldn’t Be Frowned Upon

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Enough with the people who point fingers at digital parents, already. This XNSPY parent realizes the important of being online vigilantes, especially in a time where there are so many piracy issues. Here is her story in her own words… I am a young parent, who grew up when the internet was still a new concept and still growing. You can say that I grew up with the internet and was the first batch to ‘graduate’ from the internet. And because the Internet was so raw and unfiltered at the time, we all did some stupid things that we all regret. Either a dumb post on a message board or a cringe-worthy video or picture or you know, the casual exchange of nude pictures with one another, no big deal, right? Wrong. My experience of the internet was wildly different from what I hope my child has. Back then, no one took the internet seriously and people who wanted to take advantage could easily do so. I wish that I had someone to guide me and to tell me right from wrong. My Experience Back when I was younger, message boards with ‘role playing’ were very popular and regrettably, I was a part of a few. Many of them were harmless and even childish, but some were more sinister than others. Some groups only allowed a certain age group to be a part of them and you needed to verify with a picture. Let’s just say that I wanted to be a part of this seemingly harmless, yet sinister group because I was an impressionable young teen and did not know any better. I was allowed in the group and received several compliments from the members, something I dismissed with them being just nice. Over the several months, they kept complimenting me, making me feel like I was a part of them and essentially “courting” me. And eventually there came a time where some of them wanted to see more of each other, so we sent each other pictures. Down the rabbit hole we went. One thing leads to another and soon, we were exchanging nude pictures of each other. I am very sure that they knew that I was underage, I did not look anywhere near the age the group allowed i.e 18. Some of them even warned me but I wanted to be the cool one. I will always regret not listening to them. Because now, those pictures are a part of someone’s ‘collection’, part of someone’s hard drive or just a part of the internet. The thought makes me shudder. The New Generation My child is very young, as I type this he is harmlessly tapping away on his iPad. I never want anything to happen to him to the likes of what happened to me. The loss of guidance on internet etiquette and rules and regulations should is imperative to be taught to everyone and every measure should be taken to ensure that children or young impressionable adolescents are safe. Whenever I bring up the topic of online parenting I am met with the same dismissive attitude from other parents who say “They’ll figure it out”. No they won’t!  I didn’t understand the internet when it was as simple when I was young, how do I expect children to understand the etiquette of the internet for as complex as it is? Please, be informed and take online safety as an imperative measure. Got a story of your own to share? Let it out all in the comments below and get a chance to be featured on this blog!

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