- Kids In Touch
- Price: Free download comes with 1 week trial subscription. Annual and bi-annual subscriptions available starting at $1.99 and up.
Raising children in such a technology-centered world is both a blessing and a curse. There are so many conveniences that are associated with cell phones and texting but oftentimes, if unsupervised, texting can be a dangerous thing for children and teens. Kids in Touch is an amazing app that allows your children to text friends and family, with your approval, in a safe and supervised way. Your children will love being able to text and you will feel totally comfortable letting them do it!
Kids in Touch comes with a free one week trial subscription with the initial download so that you can try it out and see if you like it. After that, you must pay a bi-annual or annual subscription to use the app. Getting started is easy! Simply set up a parent account on your device. Then you can add your family members by creating profiles for them. They can choose their own avatar and set up a PIN for their profile so that their siblings can’t get in and read their messages. That way, several children can share the same device and take turns texting. Parents, however, always have access to all messages so that they can know what is being sent and received.
Next, they can invite friends and family members, with your approval, to download the app so that they can text with them. They are not allowed to add anyone and no one is allowed to add them to their distribution lists without you knowing and without your approval. Subscription upgrades are also available, at an extra cost, to be able to text pictures and videos. All pictures and videos are encrypted when sent as an added safety feature to protect your family’s privacy. Another feature I love is that you can set the app to “Mute” so that during quiet times, you will not be bothered with texts.
Kids in Touch has been a huge hit in our family. This has been a perfect way for my children to communicate with cousins and grandparents that live out of state. They have had so much fun sending pictures and messages back and forth! Another fun way my children use this app, is to send messages to each other while playing “Spy”. You can use this app on any iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. As a parent, I have found this is a valuable tool to teach my children appropriate texting etiquette and guidelines so that when they get old enough to have their own phone I feel confident that they know safe texting practices. I also love that they can feel like they have some “grown up” privileges but I can still supervise and control their communications. I would highly recommend this app to any family who has children who want to text, but are still too young to do it without proper supervision.