r/parentalcontrols

Life is sooo boring. First of all,parental controls block so much stuff i wanna learn. Wanna root? Nope. Can't evsn fucking turn on developer mode. But nooo lets focus everything on useful features instead of actual child safety,as it is extremely easy to bypass stuff like nsfw filter etc. Second of all,i can hardly do ANYTHING for my age. Im not even allowed to walk to the store because its across one semi major road. Third of all,i hardly have any control over my life. I have a fair argument against my parents? Apparently i dont because they always end with something along the lines of"i don't care your my child therefore I get the end decision." Do parent's not realize once i move out i can js...not talk to them ever again. Please I am begging you if you get your kids devices don't install parental controls they do so much more harm than good often

My daughter (12F) has had an Apple watch for a couple of years. I like that the watch gives us a way to reach her and it also gives her a way to call and text her friends. This year the begging for a phone has reached an extreme intensity. It's been emotionally exhausting dealing with it, to be honest. We didn't plan to even entertain the idea of a phone for her until at least after she finishes middle school, but I broke down and started doing some research because the constant daily battle at a fever pitch is taking so much of my energy.

One of her main complaints is that texting is a huge hassle on a tiny watch, which is actually a pretty legitimate complaint. She also doesn't like that she can't see videos that her friends send her, even if they are appropriate. Also, the sports teams she is involved in for school use Slack for communication, which she can't do on her watch, and her church youth group uses GroupMe, also hard to do on a watch.

I went ahead and ordered a Pinwheel phone, which I added to our Verizon plan. I am working on setting it up for her, but we will not be giving it to her until Christmas. I was able to set both Slack and GroupMe up on the Pinwheel, even though they are flagged as things Pinwheel doesn't recommend.

My question is whether Bark would be overkill on a Pinwheel phone? The attraction of Bark to me is that it supposedly automatically monintors texts for concerning content like indications of self harm, profanity, racist language, etc. While Pinwheel will allow us to remotely read her texts ourselves whenever we need to, I don't have the time, patience, or desire to go through dozens of texts of "bro!," and memes of animals with giant bulging eyes and talking toilets, etc. I just want to know if anything seriously dangerous or inappropriate is going on.

Other than that, it doesn't seem that Bark would add anything that Pinwheel doesn't already do. Do any parents who are familiar with Pinwheel and Bark have any imput for me?

Is anyone trying to reach Pinwheel customer service and unable to get them to answer the phone or respond to emails???