As a parent, you want to make sure that your kids are safe and protected online.
When it comes to texting app for kids, there’s no shortage of options out there. But how do you know which one is the best app for your child?
What should you consider before downloading an app? And what alternatives can help keep your kid safe while still having fun with texting on their phone?
I’ll cover why you might need a child friendly messaging platform to start with. Then I’ll share, my top picks and some tips on other popular messaging apps that are not so child friendly. And what you can do to keep them safe.
Read this guide to find the right texting app for your child and check out my list of recommended text apps for kids!
Why Choose a Texting App for Your Kid?
As a parent, you need to know which apps your child is using and what they are doing online. Choosing a child-friendly texting app enables you to monitor and control your kids’ texting while enabling them to be independent and tech-savvy.
Texting apps meant specifically for kids are designed to be secure and safeguard them from online threats.
When it comes to online messaging, there are many dangers that parents need to protect their kids from such as:
- Cyberbullying: Choosing the wrong texting app may increase your child’s risk of being exposed to cyberbullying and harassment or they may cyberbully others.
- Being Contacted by Strangers: You must pick texting apps that offer parental control to check who their child is connecting with and that they are not contacted by strangers.
- Sexting: Kids may receive and send inappropriate texts and images that can be dangerous.
- Grooming: If the app allows kids to connect with strangers, then this increases the risk of grooming.
Unfortunately these dangers are all too common these days. On the other hand you want your younger kids to learn about texting and messaging. After all it will play a big part in their lives as they grow.
A good child friendly messaging app is a safe stepping stone on their way. Mainstream messaging apps mostly have age restrictions – usually for over 13 years old. But you really don’t want young kids let loose on platforms like Snapchat or WhatsApp – not if you are sane!
I’ve researched and tried out a few of these safe apps – here are the best ones.
Best Texting App for Kids
Child-friendly texting apps meant for kids not only have features that make texting and chatting more interesting and fun, but they also have advanced privacy settings that offer greater privacy and safety for kids. Let’s look at some of the best texting apps for kids.
Messenger Kids
Available for iOS and Android devices, Messenger Kids allows kids to connect with their family and friends via their smartphone or tablet.
The free app offers a safe and controlled environment as the app has a customizable parent dashboard that allows parents to create their kids’ accounts and kids can connect only with contacts approved by parents.
Parents can also review their kids’ content anytime. The app does not include any in-app purchases or ads and kids can block, as well as report users themselves.
The app offers plenty of interactive features, emojis, GIFs, stickers and other creative tools that make interactions fun and enjoyable.
Stars Messenger
A kid-friendly app, Stars Messenger offers a safe space for your child to chat and interact with friends and family. Designed for Android and iOS phones and devices, the app does not require a phone number for setup.
The app allows parents to set up private groups to ensure their kids’ safety and the app ensures that people cannot locate your child or send friend requests.
The Star Pin feature lets your child log in to the app safely. The Stars Messenger app is a cute and easy-to-use app. It is well designed, colorful, has fun fonts and new emojis, allowing you to send texts with personalized styles.
JusTalk Kids
The JusTalk Kids app offers kids all the messaging and calling features in a fun and safe environment. The app is designed for use on both iOS and Android phones and devices and is passcode protected.
The best thing is that the app does not need a phone number to chat. It allows you to block profiles and does not allow any requests, messages or calls from strangers or people who are not parent approved.
The JusTalk Kids offers plenty of features such as games, stickers, doodles, group calls and chats and connections with other family members having the JusTalk account.
JusTalk Kids is a paid app and you need to pay a one-time fee or subscription; however, all the features and child safety it offers make it worth a try.
Fennec Messenger
Fennec Messenger is an excellent and safe texting app for kids. Apart from smartphones and tablets, Fennec Messenger supports smartwatches too.
The app requires parental approval for friends to be able to chat with your kid, which prevents strangers from contacting or texting your child.
The app has great features such as it allows you to set reminders for important events, it can locate your kid’s smart device if misplaced or lost and the Time Restriction feature ensures that the app shuts off after a specific time.
Fennec Messenger is a super fun app too with plenty of images and stickers, personalizing conversations and allowing your child to draw pictures using the app that they can send to their friends and family members.
Blinx
Specifically designed for kids 8 years and above, the “kindergarten for social media” or the Blinx app offers kids a safe environment where they can experience and learn the joys of social interaction without parents being worried about their safety.
Your child can send and receive messages, share videos, photos and vemos (voice memos) with the selected “in-crowd” only.
The app guarantees data privacy because all the messages are stored in the devices of the in-crowd only and if a message is not downloaded, then is deleted from the servers permanently.
Chomp SMS
One of the best and safest text messaging apps for kids, Chomp SMS comes with several advanced features and options for customization.
The app works only on Android smartphones and devices and has plenty of advanced security features, which makes it kid-safe such as passcode lock, blocking and blacklisting and stopping the text message while sending it.
Mainstream Messaging Apps and Kids
By mainstream, I’m talking about platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp and Skype. It might surprise you but many parents let their young kids loose on these messaging apps unsupervised.
Even though it is against most of their policies for kids under 13 years old. Of course kids know how to get around this easily.
As I mentioned above, these apps can be a dangerous place for children. Maybe you aren’t even aware that your kids are using these apps. No matter what apps your kids are using, as a responsible adult you should be looking out for them.
Here on AcisNI I talk a lot about using monitoring apps for parents to help keep their kids safe online. Using these apps will alert you to the apps they download and use.
Plus you’ll get access to everything they do – you can see all messages, videos and pictures. Everything they do on their phones can be monitored at all times without them knowing.
Make sure you check out my main Spy Apps section for everything you need to know.
Parting Thoughts
Child friendly texting apps can be a great way to get your kids started with messaging their friends and family in a controlled way. The best apps have built in controls to help you mange their activity.
When they start to move on to other regular messaging apps it might be time to look at other ways to monitor what they are up to. You do have alternative solutions to help keep them safe online.
Have a good look around the site I have lots of information to help!
