What Parents Need To Know About The App Store

This summer I'm doing a series on What Parent's Need to Know about *insert some type of online thing here*... because it's not just parents that need to know these things but teachers too AND if there is one thing we all know it's that online stuff changes so often it's hard to keep up (especially when you aren't even using that app/program)!

Today I'm talking about the App Store

What parents need to know about the app store

You can find this free to download here and here are 3 of my take aways from it:

1)  Restrict in app purchases.  This one seems obvious.  You don't want to wait until it's too late and you've got an extra $200 on your Visa statement for a bunch of in app purchases you didn't approve.  You can make it so that every in app purchase requires you to put in a passcode.

2)  Use family sharing.  This is something I wasn't aware of... but using family sharing will allow you to monitor what your child is doing on their device better and you can use it to need your permission before an app is even downloaded.

3)  Avoid other app stores.  I had no idea about this one either... there are other app stores out there?  But I guess if you really, REALLY want something you'll put in a Google search for it and eventually find what you're looking for.. even if you are downloading something from a different app store. Devices aren't cheap and we want them to last a long, LONG time so maybe just explain that to your child and why we only use the app store associated with their device.

Last week I talked about what we need to know about age ratings.