Discord has marked its presence by gaining popularity in a short time, especially among teenagers and young adults. While it's a great source for staying connected with people or large communities through various means like voice, video, or text, it also exposes the users mainly minors to online risks.
Here parents' concerns develop which are totally right. It's important for every parent to understand these dangers and to know effective discord monitoring strategies if they want a safe digital environment for their kids. In this article, we will highlight major potential hazards related to Discord and also offer effective steps you can take as a parent to monitor your child's Discord activities.
- Method 1: Potential Risks Kids Might Face on Discord
- Method 2: Monitor Child's Discord Usage through Discord Family Center
- Method 3: Limitations of Discord Family Center Monitoring
- Method 4: Bonus: Fully Monitor Your Child's Discord Activity
Potential Risks Kids Might Face on Discord
Inappropriate Content
On Discord media, there happens to be a diverse range of discussions and the possibility of the conversations to include explicit language, violent visuals, or sexual content is quite high.
Such exposure is harmful to kids, especially to their psychological or mental development. So parents should be alert if they don't want to see any inappropriate behaviors in their kids.
Stranger Danger
Discord is a source to connect with people worldwide which means it also increases the risk of your kids having a connection with strangers.
So parents must look out for their kids to avoid any sort of digital exploitation like manipulation.
Sextortion
Sextortion is a form of cybercrime where a person can threaten someone using explicit or intimate pictures, or videos until the victim sends them what they demand in return which is usually sexual in nature.
It can cause severe emotional distress, and confidence damage to your kids if parents don't take care of what activities their children are involving themselves with online.
Cyberbullying
Your child can also face cyberbullying like harassment, shaming, explicit rumors, or bullying on Discord if you don't give attention to their Discord usage.
Cyberbullying can become one of the major reasons behind your child's low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, or other mental health issues.
Addiction and Screen Time
Social media has become an addiction itself and Discord is no less. Online interactions through convenient and quick engagement with friends can surely make your child addicted which also enhances their screen time.
Addiction can lead to long exposure to screens and can affect your child's physical health.
Monitor Child's Discord Usage through Discord Family Center
For guiding parents and guardians in knowing what communities their kids are part of on Discord and how they use it, there is a helpful tool known as Discord Family Center.
Through this, you as a parent or guardian can monitor your child's Discord usage, and identify, and address any possible risk before it reaches and affects your precious ones.
Let's see what activities you can monitor through Discord Parental/Family Center feature:
- How many friends your kid has added.
- How many new servers your kid has joined.
- Their active servers.
- How many friends they have messaged and called over the week.
Now, let's see how you can set up a Discord Family Center.
Note: You can connect your Discord account with your kid's Discord account through a Browser or Desktop, but even for this procedure, you first have to install the Discord app on your phone.
Step 1. Open tbe Discord app and go to "Settings."
Step 2. Click on "Family Center" and toggle on "Enable Family Center tab."
Step 3. Now, ask your teen for their QR code and scan it with your Discord app.
Step 4. Ask your teen accept the request.
Step 5. Your connection has been done. You can go to "Family Center" on your Discord's app and click on "Activity" to see the activity summary.
Limitations of Discord Family Center Monitoring
Discord Family Center gives you access to major activities that are held by your child in their Discord app but still, there are limitations in terms of Discord Monitoring. Let's go through the limitations you have to face while monitoring your child's discord
Limited Scope of Monitoring
Discord Family Center Monitoring only has the capabilities to show how many interactions your child has made, servers your child has been active greatly with, and how many calls and messages have been made, but not the exact details, making monitoring scope limited.
You won't have direct access to your kid's private messages, voice calls, or private community interactions. This limitation can create the possibility of reaching harmful or inappropriate activities towards your child, without you noticing it.
Lack of Real-time Alerts
You can not see real-time notifications that can require your immediate attention as the Family Center offers weekly reports to the parent.
Thus, if your child unintentionally or intentionally looks at inappropriate content or faces cyberbullying then it can take some time for you to notice the situation. Such delay can be a great hindrance to achieving effective parent monitoring.
Inadequate Content Filtering
There is also no content filtering feature that you can enable to save your child against inappropriate or harmful content online. It means your child is open to getting exposed to such unethical content anytime even if you have enabled Discord Family Center monitoring.
No Control Over External Links
External links especially coming from an unknown source or stranger can lead to unsafe or unethical content.
Your child at first doesn't know what is in the link unless he/she opens it, resulting in unintentional exposure to unsafe content and you won't even know when this can happen, highlighting the limitation of Discord Family Center monitoring.
Bonus: Fully Monitor Your Child's Discord Activity
By knowing the limitations of Discord Family Center monitoring, it becomes necessary for you as a parent or guardian to look for a more efficient app in order to keep your child in an environment that has less possibility of exposure to harmful content.
And good news is you won't have to work hard, as the AirDroid Parental Control app is the only app you need. This app has effective monitoring features for multiple platforms, including Discord.
AirDroid Parental Control
• Sync instant Discord notifications
• Set keywords to monitor your child’s conversations
• Mirror phone screen of your child to see their real-time Discord activity
• Manage Discord screen time usage
Download NowSee Pricing
Conclusion
As the world and connections are moving towards the digital era quickly, it's impossible to keep your child away from digital platforms. Where online interaction through communication platforms like Discord has become crucial, the idea of safety has also become a major issue for parents.
Discord does offer Discord's Family Center tool to parents to monitor their child's activities on the Discord app and to ease their worries, still, it's not enough to take immediate actions and to right away block any unsafe exposure. For this third-party tool like AirDroid Parental Control has to be utilized to empower parents/guardians' protection towards their child.