Digital resources in family health offer numerous benefits. These apps provide easy access to medical information, advice, and tools for managing health routines, making it easier to track vaccinations, appointments, and nutrition. Many apps offer features like reminders, health assessments, and expert consultations, promoting better overall health management. They can also help parents monitor their children’s physical activity, online safety, and more. With access to personalized health data, parents can make informed decisions, save time, and enhance communication with healthcare providers, ultimately improving the family’s health outcomes and well-being.
Track family health
While many Northern Colorado parents and caregivers use the My Health Connection app (called “UCHealth” in the app store) to manage their own health appointments, prescriptions, and caregiver messaging tools, too many don’t realize you can add your child’s profile to your account and manage all family members through their own sign in. To add a child or family member, create your own account with My Health Connection and follow these instructions (https://www.uchealth.org/access-my-health-connection/sharing-my-health-connection-accounts/) to “request family access.” There are varying ways to request access for different ages; the groups include children aged 0-13, teenagers aged 14-17, and dependent adults.
Online & Digital Safety
The Bark app is a parental control app that monitors a child’s online activity. It uses AI to scan for threats like cyberbullying, pornography, and sexting. Bark also allows parents to set screen time limits and block inappropriate websites.
What Bark does
• Monitors texts, emails, social media, and more
• Alerts parents to potential issues like cyberbullying and adult content
• Helps parents set healthy time limits
• Helps parents create schedules for when devices can connect to the internet
• Helps parents select which websites their child can access
• Tracks location using live GPS, location alerts, and check-ins
While online safety is of utmost importance to any parent, many also have worries about any tool that uses AI to track a digital footprint. Bark respects a child’s privacy by only surfacing potential concerns and can help parents get their child the support they need based on the many settings available.
Screen Time Monitoring
These two apps do similar things but for different devices. Apple Screen time works for iOS users and Google Family Link works with Androids. Both are recommended for kids who are under the age of 13. The New York Times ranked these options as the two best options for monitoring your child’s screen time. The apps are easy to use, allow for the limiting of distracting apps (TikTok, YouTube, and other apps are designed to be addictive), allow for scheduling screen-free time and also track overall use. The tracking of overall use includes allowing parents to see how their child is using their device, such as how much time they spend on social media or games.
