Discord Monitoring: What Can Parents Do
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.
Potential Risks Teens Might Face on Discord
| Inappropriate Content | Discord often hosts diverse discussions, and conversations may include explicit language, violent visuals, or sexual content. Such exposure harms teens, especially their psychological or mental development. |
| Stranger Danger | Discord lets users join servers and chat with many people, including strangers, which could expose teens to those with harmful intentions. |
| Sextortion | On Discord, users may meet deceptive people who gain their trust to obtain compromising images or information, then use these to threaten or extort them, often demanding money or more content to keep it private. |
| Cyberbullying | Cyberbullying is a major issue on Discord, where users can send messages anonymously and join groups. Teens may face harassment, threats, or humiliation, and the anonymity can make it hard to identify the bully. |
| Addiction and Screen Time | Discord's constant chats and updates can be addictive, causing teens to spend too much time on it, which can interfere with homework, sleep, and real-life social interactions. |
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 the Discord Family Center:
- 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 the Discord desktop app and go to "Settings." (You can also set it up within the Discord mobile app.)
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 to 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's Family Center grants parents access to key activities their child engages in on the app, but it does have limitations. While it provides a glimpse into their interactions, it might not cover everything your child does or shares. Let's explore these limitations to better understand what you might encounter while monitoring your child's Discord activity.
⛔️ 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.
• 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
Conclusion
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 parental control apps like AirDroid Parental Control have to be utilized to empower parents/guardians' protection towards their child.
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