Why not also check out iTandCoffee's free videos and guide covering parental controls on the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. 

Please don't wait until something bad happens to your child to finally take an interest in what they do on their device.

Every parent needs to read this article, then check their children's mobile devices to see if they are using the listed apps.

One of the mums who attended the iTandCoffee free morning tea this week found herself in an all too common situation.  

She could not get into the 'Parental Controls' area of her family iPad because no-one in the family could remember the passcode to that area that has already been put in place some time ago.

A forgotten Restrictions passcode makes it impossible to look at and set up/change the parental controls that have already been set.  

Depending on what restrictions are in place, inability to access and change restrictions can also greatly limit some capabilities of the iPad.  

When there have already been multiple failed attempts to guess the Restrictions passcode, each new guess that failed then sets a longer and longer delay on when the passcode can be re-attempted.

Even a normal reset of the device is disabled until the Restrictions passcode is entered.

Of course, an important message here is that it is essential that, before you set up any Restrictions on an Apple device, you must be sure that you are not going to forget the passcode that you use.

A forgotten Restrictions password is a real problem as the only way to clear it is to perform a 'factory reset' using iTunes on a computer - which will wipe its contents.   

Even if you have a backup of your device, you cannot just re-instate the device from backup if the backup itself also had the Restrictions passcode set at the time the backup was done!  

If you only just set up the Restrictions passcode and have a backup from before that passcode was set, you can restore that backup after the factory reset  (which will mean losing whatever was new in the time since that backup was done).

If you don't have a backup that is free of the Restrictions passcode, you have to do the factory reset and the set up your device again - re-download all of your apps and re-do all your settings.  

Any photos that you had on the device will be wiped when you do a factory reset, so make sure you import them to a computer before wiping the device.  After the reset, you could sync back any photos you want to put onto the device using iTunes (or perhaps the Photo Transfer app).  Any music would also need to be re-downloaded and re-sync'd.

Definitely not what most people will want to do - very drastic action to have to take when all you want to do is reset the Restrictions passcode!

If you find yourself in the situation where you don't know the Restrictions passcode (or perhaps where a child in your family might have set it and then forgotten the code), iTandCoffee has a tool that should be able to extract the restrictions passcode from an iTunes backup of the device.

In the case of the mum who attended the iTandCoffee morning tea this week, this solved the problem - to the great relief of the children in the family, who were at risk of losing some of their precious games data!

Contact iTandCoffee for more information if you find yourself in this situation and need to retrieve your Restrictions passcode - 1300 885 420.

This recent article in Mamamia really struck a chord with me.  It's author talks about being the 'default parent' in her family.

While it's topic is not really anything to do with technology, it made me think about all the mothers I know socially and that I see as clients who are not only the 'default parent' for education, health, haircuts, homework, projects, etc etc.  They are also the default parent when it comes to worrying about their kids' online safety.

So many younger children now have access to iPads, iPod Touches and even iPhones.  While many parents have been conscious of ensuring that childrens' computer usage is monitored and supervised, this level of attention is often not applied to the childrens' use of these mobile devices.

While the male of the household may often be the one who looks after the general technology 'stuff' in the house, this often does not extend to the area of cybersafety.  The mums who are concerned about this area are often not tech-savvy, and don't know where to turn for help.  It all gets put in the 'too hard' basket.

Even schools seem to lack interest in educating parents about the specifics of how to keep kids safe on devices that the school has mandated that the children must have.

Well mums (and those dad's who may be the 'default parent' when it comes to cybersafety), don't despair!  

On your kids' iPads, iPod Touches and iPhones, it is very easy to set up parental controls that can  keep your kids from gaining access to all sorts of inappropriate and unsavoury content - and that can limit their access to features on these devices that they may not, at their age, really need to use.

Come along to a free morning tea to find out more!

I will be hosting a free morning tea on Wednesday 19th November from 9:30-10:30 at iTandCoffee in Camberwell, where I will show how easy it is to set up these parental controls on your children's Apple device/s.

If you would like to attend this morning tea, please RSVP by Friday 14th November by emailing enquiry@itandcoffee.com.au or calling 1300 885 420.