HomeHalo: Restricting internet time and content for 6-11 year olds

At 6-years old, I feel my son is still a bit too young to have an iPad of his own. However, we do allow him to use the house iPad some afternoons after school and at weekends. I have downloaded a couple of phonics apps on there, which he mostly ignores; a few games for fun and also Netflix, which is usually his first port of call.

I do limit his time on the iPad, but only because when he does get his hands on it, I have to wrestle it back off him. He’ll be so engrossed in a film that when I call him for dinner, he either cannot hear me, or he pretends he can’t. My next call and the call after that will be met with the same silence.

Eventually, I will have to physically remove the iPad from his fingers to get him to sit at the table, which infuriates him! Especially if he is in the middle of a crucial scene or just about to reach a new level on a game.

According to new research from HomeHalo, I am not alone and more than 8-million arguments over technology usage are taking place in UK households every day. HomeHalo is an integrated smart router, cloud service & smartphone app system that was created by frustrated parents, to give them the ability to manage internet usage for all connected devices in their home.

It connects to your existing router and then you just have to configure profiles for each user in the house. No matter their age, you can be safe in the knowledge that everyone is only accessing suitable websites, and at a time of day that you allow.

So, I can set up my son’s profile so he can access the internet while I cook dinner, but it switches off from 5-6pm while we eat. Hopefully, this will save both the fallout and my tired voice.

The settings are easy to control and can be instantly changed, so as my son gets older we can adjust the times he is allowed online and the sites we think are appropriate for him to visit. With over 5oo million websites on the HomeHalo database, when you specify the sites you don’t want to be accessed, you can be sure they will be blocked.

But, it is not just my 6-year old who I think could benefit from having restrictions online. There are so many times I sit down to write a blog post and get distracted by social media, shopping websites and catch-up TV. With HomeHalo, I can block these sites for an hour or two when I really need to get my head down.

I also think the Greek God(zilla) and I are sometimes both guilty of tapping away on our phones while we are watching a film on the telly, or supposedly having an early night in bed. If we could agree a time for the internet to go off on all of our devices, I think we’d not only enjoy the film a lot more without constantly having to rewind back to the bits we missed, but we’d also get a lot more sleep.

What you need to know:

• The wireless box costs £35 and is available from www.homehalo.co.uk
• There is a £3 monthly charge for the service, which you can stop at any time
• HomeHalo does not work with 3G enabled devices therefore, it is best suited to children from the age of 6-11

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