Practicing social distancing has meant that online messaging and video calls have been some of the only ways of keeping in touch with our family and friends. For the younger ones in our lives, this may not be so easy. If your kids don’t have access to social media, which is the majority, Messenger Kids is the perfect alternative that’ll keep children connected with their friends during COVID-19.
What is Messenger Kids?
Messenger Kids is an alternative messaging app created especially for children. It’s a space controlled by parents for kids to be able to connect with their loved ones over video chat and messaging chats.
What does the app feature?
Parents have control
Your children may not be able to go on playdates with their friends, but they should definitely be allowed to have fun with them over video, whether it be one-on-one or group video chats. From the home screen, parents can monitor who your child is chatting with and which contacts are online.
Bring conversations to life
Messenger Kids isn’t only about video chats, it’s also there for photo-sending, gif-sharing, painting, and of course messaging. Children can only send messages to other users who are parent-approved. Users can choose from a selection of fun and quirky child-appropriate gifs, stickers, masks, drawing tools and more to add a little more creativity to the chat.
Parents control the account and the account’s contact list via the Messenger Kids Parent Dashboard in their main Facebook iOS and Android app.
How do I set up Messenger Kids?
Download
The first step is to download the app on the iOS App Store or Google Play store for iPad, iPod touch, or iPhone.
Authenticate
After the app is downloaded, parents must authenticate the chosen device by signing in with their own Facebook username and password. This does not create a Facebook account for your child, it simply gives them access to Messenger Kids.
Create an account
Once the device is authenticated, it’s time to create an account. Provide your child’s name with any features you’d like added.
Add contacts
To add people to your child’s contact list, simply go to the Messenger Kids Dashboard in your main Facebook app which can be found by tapping “more” in the bottom right corner and then tapping “Messenger Kids” in the Explore section. From there you can add and remove contacts.
