by Larry Magid
A new smartphone app, Goya-Move is “designed to get children off their mobile devices and moving again.” The company says that its app allows parents to:
- Set a daily or hourly step goal for their children.
- Block specific apps that will be timed out until the desired step goal is reached by the child
- Set block-out times
- Set and enforce “fun or challenging” goals
The founders of Goya-Move said their “goal was not to punish our children by taking their phones away, rather teach them about screen time moderation and accountability.” They further say (and I agree) “by taking our children’s phones away as punishment, we have now lost the ability to communicate with our children, track our children and give them access to a secure way to communicate in an escalated situation.
By the way, if you do track your child’s phone or any of their activities, talk with them about it first. Never do it in stealth mode because, if you have to follow up, you don’t want that conversations starting with their surprise that you’ve “invaded my privacy.”There is both an iOS and Android version.