Teen get around Orbi RBR40 with Circle Parental Control App

[BGA]

I've set up Circle Parental Control on my Orbi Router.  However, my teen can simply force stop the Circle App, look at whatever he wants and then restart the app. I can find no way to prevent this or to tell me if he has done such. Does anyone know a workable solution to this? I've searched quite a bit but not yet found any.

[plemans · Accepted solution]

Teens are a challenge.

with enough motivation, they can basically get around most things. 

Disable the wifi? They get on the neighbors, use the lte data, or setup a wireless connection to a laptop/pc with data.

Setup parental controls, they tunnel through with a vpn

Setup an app for blocking, they disable the app. 

If they're motivated enough, there's ways around pretty much anything. 

At a certain point, when they're advanced enough to get around your restrictions, its more about talking to them about why you're restricting certain things and put consequences for their actions. 

If their disabling it, its because they're doing something you disapprove of and they're aware of it. Its a conscious decision. Disable the app to get around it? suddenly you get a flip phone to use and not a smart phone. Then they still have access to calls/texts for emergencies. Most phones you can simply swap a sim card around. 

I'm not sure what to tell you when your teen gets advanced enough to start working around your blocks other than its time for a conversation about consequences. 

[plemans · Accepted solution]

Teens are a challenge.

with enough motivation, they can basically get around most things. 

Disable the wifi? They get on the neighbors, use the lte data, or setup a wireless connection to a laptop/pc with data.

Setup parental controls, they tunnel through with a vpn

Setup an app for blocking, they disable the app. 

If they're motivated enough, there's ways around pretty much anything. 

At a certain point, when they're advanced enough to get around your restrictions, its more about talking to them about why you're restricting certain things and put consequences for their actions. 

If their disabling it, its because they're doing something you disapprove of and they're aware of it. Its a conscious decision. Disable the app to get around it? suddenly you get a flip phone to use and not a smart phone. Then they still have access to calls/texts for emergencies. Most phones you can simply swap a sim card around. 

I'm not sure what to tell you when your teen gets advanced enough to start working around your blocks other than its time for a conversation about consequences. 

[FURRYe38]

How is the teen getting access to the Circle app? The Circle app should be on a separate parent only device which has the profile to include the devices being managed and I thought that the app on the parent device controls the managed devices. The teen should not have access to the parent mobile device with the app on it. 

Another suggestion that could work is off site OpenDNS services where I believe you can set up some parental controls which the router sould be configured to use. However, like @plemans mentioned, teens may just have there device access different wifi signals or recources that by pass what you have tried to put in place. 

[BGA]

The Circle App has to be loaded on each device to be filtered. There is a choose when installing the app to be either the Parental one or the other. When installing, there is a QR  displayed that the parents device reads with its camera and sets up the link. Quite nice.

I could always run via a router's filtering, but much less customizable.

One solution would be a companion App such that either app pushed out a notification if the other was stopped.

It is a formidable challenge to block a savy teen (when I'm a teen again in my next lifetime, good luck trying to stop me).

BGA