Our family of 5 has more Apple devices in the house than people. I'm embarrassed to say, we have more than enough iPads, iPods, and iPhones to go around. So when I came across
Curbi, and saw there was a 14 day free trial, I jumped on it.
Curbi is a fantastic way to "curb" your children's iPad, iPhone, and iPod use, without blocking everything out completely, and tailoring your own rules to fit the needs of each individual child in your family.
After signing up, you have the opportunity to enroll the devices in your home that you would like to manage. It's easy to install the Curbi app on your own device so you can curb, block, and then watch what your kids are doing on their devices.
The
Curbi website has a great "
how it works" tab which includes a step by step video on how to get started. There's three easy steps, and you're up and running. It's super simple!
After a week of using
Curbi, I received an email with a weekly usage report for our enrolled devices. It told what apps were used, how much time each app was used, as well as recently installed apps.
There were both daily and weekly reports.
The time usage report was an eye opener for me, and I was able to use it as a tool when I talked to my children about limiting their time on the internet. I found the weekly report incredibly useful!
I also received an email from
Curbi reminding me to set rules for my devices. The rules allowed me to filter content or enforce time restrictions.
These rules are simple to set, and you can tailor them for each individual device. This feature is very important to families like mine with children ranging from 5 to 14 years old. For example, some of the rules we might set for our 14 year old include: only educational sites during study time, no time wasting sites on weekdays, and no device use after 9 pm.
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| With Curbi, I have the ability to restrict use after bedtime. There's no bargaining, I just have to set a "rule". |
A rule we may set for our 5 year old is not allowing in-app purchases, and for my 11 year old, it's all about restricting time spent playing games.
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| Sometimes my older kids use their Ipods for study time. With Curbi, I can set a rule to restrict what sites and apps can be used during study time. |
Perhaps one of the best features of
Curbi is the ability to control your devices remotely. This feature is wonderful, because you don't even have to be home with your child, or even near them to do it. Simply manage the device remotely from your iPhone. Brilliant!
I found the
Curbi website and app invaluable. It is simple to use, easy to modify to fit my families needs, and it is reasonably priced at only $6.99/ month. It gives me peace of mind, and the ability to monitor and protect my family from unwanted content and too much "screen time".
