If you’re a parent, we know that your child’s safety is always on your mind.
After all, keeping our kids safe is one of our most important roles as parents, but it can feel like a challenging task in today’s ever-evolving digital world.
As a teacher, I know firsthand that more and more learning and recreation takes place online, which can make it feel like we’re swimming upstream to ensure our kids’ digital safety and well-being.
We’d never let our kids wander down a dark alley alone or go into a seedy-looking store by themselves… and yet we may unknowingly be allowing the digital equivalent every day.
Not only is there a boatload of inappropriate content waiting around every virtual corner, but there are also increasingly worrisome studies around the toll excessive screen time can take on our children.
Screen time can cut into your child’s time for doing their homework, laughing with their friends, playing sports, learning new hobbies, or just being kids.
Findings show that too much time in front of screens can decrease a child’s capacity for problem-solving, patience, memory, creativity, and self-directed independent play.
With the average amount of screen time for kids adding up to 4 to 6 hours a day – and reaching nine hours for teens – it’s a valid concern.
This is why many parents are investing in digital security programs that can help promote healthy online habits for the entire family.
In this review, I’ll check out the Norton Family product that offers a suite of features designed to keep kids safe online.
Read my full Norton Family review to learn what I thought of their different plans, so that you can find out which option might be right for keeping your own kiddos safe online.
What is Norton Family?
Norton Family | 360 protection for your connected world
Maximize your child's online safety and focus with Norton Family, featuring a new schooltime tool to manage virtual learning, promote safe browsing habits, and balance screen time effectively.
Norton Family is a digital safety package specifically designed to make the internet a safer place for the young people in your household.
With Norton Family, you can keep track of everything your child is doing online – and set some boundaries to prevent them from accessing anything they shouldn’t.
We loved the thoughtful facets that Norton Family includes. Instead of simply serving as a way to track or “spy” on your kids’ digital activity, this program actually opens the door for building lasting good habits.
For example, Norton Family offers easy-to-use Web Supervision that allows you to monitor and block certain sites.
The program includes Search Supervision too, so that you can see what keywords your child is typing in.
Norton also gives parents a Time Supervision feature, which allows you to choose when and how long kids can access their devices.
This is a great way to effortlessly enforce what’s known as good “digital hygiene” – cutting out screens before bedtime, say, or prioritizing face-to-face conversation with friends and family during dinnertime.
If your child participates in virtual school and needs to use the internet during the day, Norton Family also offers a unique School Time feature.
Instead of completely pausing their online access, School Time lets kids utilize the educational sites, apps, and programs they need, while cutting out sites that might be distractions.
All of these features help create transparency for your child’s online web activity.
To keep things from feeling punitive, Norton Family also includes an Access Request option for your kids.
This feature allows your children to send you a virtual note asking permission to access a particular site, allowing you to unblock it on a case-by-case basis if you choose.
This opens communication and gives kids some say in their browsing… even if you ultimately decide to keep the site restricted.
Video Supervision and Mobile Supervision are also helpful ways to keep tabs on what your child is viewing online and downloading onto their devices.
You can watch short clips of each video to ensure there’s nothing inappropriate. Norton Family will even send email alerts if your child is attempting to access a blocked site.
With the option for Instant Locking, you can quickly shut down access right away. The Instant Lock feature can also be handy for forcing your teenager to put down the phone and come join the dinner table!
You can arrange for devices to be unlocked with a PIN, or grant access remotely from the Parent Portal.
Most of these supervision checkpoints offer insights at a glance, but Norton Family also includes detailed monthly and weekly data breakdowns if you prefer.
These more in-depth reports can help you spot trends in your child’s internet activity and identify any concerns before they snowball into problems.
Norton Family goes beyond the strictly digital realm to help keep your kids safe in the physical world, too.
Features like Location Supervision and Favorite Locations help you track your child’s physical location and keep you informed of where they are when they’re out and about.
This is a great safety measure for older kids, as it allows them to do things independently while still ensuring that they are where they’re supposed to be.
The Location Supervision control will generate a thirty-day history of your child’s location, while the Alert Me option lets you select automatic updates on your child’s location at a particular day and time.
See what we mean by thorough? This software truly addresses every concern a parent could have!
What Does the Norton Family Plan Cost?
Now that our Norton Family review has talked all about the myriad security features it offers, let’s dive into what the different Norton security programs actually cost.
This is worth researching, because the company is actually offering some valuable deals right now.
The Norton Family plan (with all the helpful kid safety features we researched above) costs $49.99 per year, which comes out to just over $4 a month, Not a bad bang for your buck!
However, Norton is currently offering a 58% discount on their 360 Deluxe package.
This option includes all of the features provided with the Norton Family package, grouped together under the name Parental Control.
In addition to all the Parental Control features, the 360 Deluxe plan includes more sophisticated anti-malware solutions to keep your devices safe.
For example, 360 Deluxe presents Dark Web Monitoring, protection against malware, ransomware, and hacking scams, a 50GB Cloud backup to keep your data safe, and a VPN private internet connection, among other security features.
This is an excellent way to help keep your kids’ screen time under control while also guaranteeing that your family’s devices are protected from any bad actors.
A subscription to 360 Deluxe covers five PCs, Macs, tablets, or phones, so you can keep your whole family safe.
Normally $118/year, right now you can nab the Norton 360 Deluxe package for the same cost as the Family plan: only $49.99 a year.
To go one step further, you can invest in Norton 360 Select, which covers up to ten devices, and includes important features like identify theft protection, SSN and credit alerts, and reimbursement for stolen funds, along with Parental Control capabilities.
Norton 360 Select is also offered at a huge discount right now, at only $99.99 for the first year (instead of the usual $179.99 yearly price tag).
Final Thoughts
Whichever of these three Norton Antivirus packages you choose, one thing is guaranteed: your children’s digital safety will be top priority.
Norton Family software helps you notice red flags and shut down any dangerous content right away.
Their helpful supervision and monitoring options provide an important window into the way your child interacts with the online world.
Perhaps more importantly, though, the Norton Family safety features can help your kids establish good digital habits from the ground up.
They’ll learn that computers and devices are only one part of their worlds, and that plenty of valuable education and connection can take place off-screen.
They’ll learn that they need to be responsible for following through on where they’re going, both online and in the real world.
And they’ll learn how to have open conversations with you about what their boundaries should look like, and why.
These aren’t just lessons that will help them in childhood. These are the foundations for good intellectual and socioemotional habits in adulthood, too.
In this day and age, learning how to balance on-screen and real world commitments had never been more important.
It’s becoming easier than ever to lose our real interests and hobbies to the rabbit hole of social media – even when we know it can have toxic effects on our physical and mental health.
Ingraining healthy online habits early is the best possible way to prevent this “online burnout” from happening at any point in your child’s life.
Investing in a Norton Family digital security plan is an investment in nothing less than your child’s health.
Nothing is more worthwhile than that.
Click here to try Norton Family for just $49.99 a year.
Do you use a Norton Family plan to keep track of your child’s internet usage? Do you have additional insights on fostering healthy digital habits for kids? Have any questions about this Norton Family review? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below!
Julia loves all things reading and writing and enjoys discovering new ways to connect with other educators.
