When it comes to kids and screens, we know that not all tech is created equally. There’s a big difference between children plugging in and tuning out on a device with zero parental controls for hours on end – versus interacting with carefully curated educational content for 20 minutes at a time with a parent. 

There’s also a lot of in-between. 

Educators and experts worldwide are urging parents to take action to prevent childhoods from being lost to YouTube rabbit holes and TikTok time drains. 

Even kids admit to feeling better without devices and say they wish adults would do more to help them learn and grow without being obsessively tethered to tech. 

“I’m a teenager and I struggle with how much time I spend on my phone. I find myself scrolling on social media when I could be outside in the weather I wished would come all school year long,” wrote a reader after my last column on the pros and cons of screens, especially in the summer. 

I also heard from parents who said they continually struggle with “ground rules, non-negotiables, and all the things to set boundaries around technology. It still requires ongoing, consistent, unwavering management.”

Still, another parent wrote, “The tech is ridiculous and needs to be reined in with regulation.”

A 17-year-old family friend, who asked that I not use her name, said that as a high school student, she wishes “phones were never introduced to my generation because of how much it affected my childhood and mental health.”

So where does this all leave us? What’s a well-meaning parent to do? 

Consider “training wheel” devices

Just because your child wants a smartphone doesn’t mean you must hand over a new iPhone or the latest Samsung Galaxy handset and hope for the best. Take advantage of gadgets built to grow along with kids. 

Several phones fit the bill here, including devices from Bark, Gabb, Troomi. The one I recommend the most to my friends and family right now is from Pinwheel. It offers five Android phone models with built-in parental controls.

There’s no web browser, and no access to social media. However, you can see your child’s text messages and call history. From the parent portal, you can choose from 1,200 apps to allow or block. Setting time limits on each app and shutting everything down at bedtime is also straightforward.  

One of the best features is that you can use it with your current service – AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc. – which is great if you want to add it to an existing family plan (depending on the model you choose). You have to pay for the phone upfront, and they start at $99. The ongoing subscription is $15 per month. 

Another good option is to go for a basic flip phone, as celebrity parents such as Jerry Seinfeld have recently spoken about doing.  

What’s a safe tablet for kids? 

For tablets, you can use parental controls on your old iPad. Amazon makes kids tablets that are inexpensive, easy and safe, and AT&T recently launched a new kids-first device called the amiGO Jr. Tab that I’ve been reviewing since it launched earlier this year. 

In a recent poll, AT&T said some 62% of parents reported feeling guilty giving their child a device, with concerns over behavioral issues and exposure to inappropriate or unintended sites as their biggest worries. 

The amiGo Jr. Tab is supposed to help. It comes pre-loaded with apps and activities aimed at inspiring kids to be creative and explore new ideas instead of just zoning out. It also offers strong guardrails to prevent any adult or mature content. It also makes managing screen time a tad easier with a built-in app that allows parents to limit playtime.

The amiGo Jr. Tab costs $166 upfront, or you can pay in monthly installments, and you’ll have to either add it to your existing AT&T plan for $20/month or pay $55/month for a new account. 

A tablet made just for kids is great if you’ve already decided that’s the route you want to take, but as the warnings from experts grow louder, a host of other new options for parents are popping up at a steady pace. 

Use tech to help manage devices

I just started trying out Aura’s $10/month parental control and child safety features. It joins parental control apps like Bark, Qustodio, Net Nanny, Canopy, Family Time, and many more. The goal is to create safer online spaces for kids by helping caregivers watch what they’re doing and who they’re interacting with. 

It’s too early for me to say how Aura stacks up against the others, but the most essential feature of any set of parental controls is the ability to use them to help kids grow and learn, not just “bust” them. 

A study in the UK recently published in the Journal of Children and Media concluded that “parental controls should not be considered a ‘silver bullet’ which will guarantee online safety.” The study concludes that parents should let kids know when they’re using watchdog-like apps and “integrate them as part of “positive parenting centered on open communication and respectful negotiation within the family.” If you don’t set it up right, the research suggests it can lead to “higher levels of family conflict and distrust, or had negative impacts on children’s privacy and autonomy.”

What’s ahead: AI tools to help create better screen time for kids 

The online world reflects humanity, from its most beautiful aspects to its darkest thoughts. It can be overwhelming even for an adult, and school-age children don’t benefit from exposure to the nastier parts of the internet in any way.

AI also mirrors society, but it’s a tool we can actually use for good. It can identify virtually anything, including the safety of any given webpage or search term, acting as a sort of protective bubble for kids as they traverse the internet. 

“We’re not in the business of taking the internet away from kids; as any parent can attest, kids want what they can’t have,” Tim Estes, CEO of Angel AI, writes via email. “The online world also can be an incredibly valuable resource for kids, who risk missing out on key learning opportunities, as well as the chance to build healthy online habits, if they don’t explore the internet earlier on in life.” 

Angel AI is an app expected out this fall that allows kids to explore the internet while holding the digital hand of an AI built specifically to keep them out of harm’s way. Estes said all queries and activity on the app are secured and encrypted, and no searches are linked to any personally identifiable information. 

In an early test of the app via my iPhone, the way it works is both simple and intuitive. I open the app, allow it to connect to my microphone, and then tap “Ask.” A floaty little AI friend pops up and asks what I want to explore. “Tell me about the biggest dinosaurs ever discovered,” I say. 

The AI “thinks” for a second and then shows a picture and some text, reading it in the same voice that an adult might use when speaking to a child. “The biggest dinosaur ever discovered is called Argentinosaurus,” it says before automatically sliding a new image onto the screen and reading again. “Argentinosaurus was as long as four school buses! Isn’t that interesting?” 

After each search, you can dive deeper into any topic or ask another question. Kids who are mesmerized by videos can search specifically for videos or even just images. 

Summer and screens:How to get your kids to put their phones down this summer

“How can I get better at Fortnight?” I ask, not just because I’m pretending to be a kid, but because I need some pointers. “Here are a few videos I found,” the AI chirps back, along with three videos that, after examination, are both informative and totally kid-safe. (We’ll see if they help my score, but for now, the app seems to be doing its job.) 

If I try to search for something less, well, child-friendly, the AI’s safeguards kick in and guide me toward a safer train of thought. A query for “a bunch of guns,” for example, is met with a message that the child should ask a grownup about it, along with some safer (but exciting) question options like “How do astronauts breathe in space?” and “What planets could humans live on?” 

“Angel understands age-inappropriate content and sensitive topics that are best handled by an adult,” Estes explains. “You can’t get to the open, unsafe Internet through Angel. The content Angel looks at or creates has to come through the content and topical filtering, ensuring its appropriateness, regardless of where it originated.”

Meanwhile, I have a new alert in my parent account: Apparently, my fictional child asked the AI to show them some guns. This is a great feature that, again, does what it’s supposed to do – get my “child” and me talking about something critically important. 

Jennifer Jolly is an Emmy Award-winning consumer tech columnist and on-air correspondent. The views and opinions expressed in this column are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of USA TODAY. Contact her at[email protected].