Kiddofy keeps children safe on the Web by blocking everything and then helps parents (or teachers and other guardians) add back approved content that is right for their children.
Finding great, personally relevant content for a child and keeping up with change over time is a lot of work for anyone. So much so, kids often miss out. Kiddofy solves this problem in two ways.
When parents trust others to share with their children, they create a team of people who are on the lookout for content that’s appropriate for, and interesting to, their kiddos. What results is a personal view of the Web for each child that matches their family’s preferences and grows with the child as they grow.
But how can a parent allow others to share with their children – especially other kiddos – and still have confidence they will have access to appropriate content only?
Overcoming this challenge is core to our mission and is what makes Kiddofy unique. So much so, our invention has been awarded U.S. Patent 10,942,991. This blog post explains how Kiddofy combines trust, simple content curation, and sharing rules to safely connect children with the content that’s right for them.
Note: See our blog post, How To Help Your Child Enjoy the Web Safely, to learn more about Kiddofy’s approach and recommendations for safety.
Yes, this is how most families get started with Kiddofy and many keep it that way. Kiddofy’s tools and controls are the best we’ve seen for managing a child’s access to the Web, even for parents who choose not to allow others to share.
The trust and sharing described below are the same mechanisms parents use to approve content for their own children. Read on, if you’re interested to know how we make sharing safe or would like to learn more about the versatility of using content Collections (new in v2) to manage your child’s, or classroom’s, approved content.
Sharing in Kiddofy requires a trust relationship, which is always controlled by a child’s parents (or teacher, in a classroom setting) and can be of two forms. First, two Kiddofy users, adults or children, can choose to trust each other. In this case, we call them Kiddofy Friends (Friends for short). Second, a user can trust a content Collection that is created and maintained by another user (with their permission). Each type of trust enables different types of sharing, described more below.
Note: When a parent first creates their Kiddofy account and adds their children (along with an optional co-parent), the only trust relationships that exist are between those parents, their children, and the content Collections curated by Kiddofy (available to all users and can be blocked by parents, if desired). At this point, these kiddos can access only age-appropriate content from Kiddofy’s Collections and content that will be shared by their parents.
Parents (including co-parents) are automatically Friends with their children – able to share with each other right out of the gate. Beyond that, parents decide who they trust, if anyone, to be Friends with their kiddos. A user can share websites / pages, content ratings, and content Collections with their Friends. More Friends means more content for kids to enjoy!
Select Add a Friend button.
Enter friend's Kiddofy Name and select Invite button.
Adding a Friend is simple. Just select Add Friend from the People Tab and then enter their Kiddofy Name. A notice will be sent in Kiddofy inviting them to become Friends. If the Friend is a child, the invite is sent to their parents for approval.
Note: Kiddofy gives parents full control of their child’s personal information and the ability to ensure none is shared, even with trusted Friends, beyond their Kiddofy Name, first name, and optional last name - all provided by parents and can be fictitious.
A user’s content in Kiddofy is organized in Collections, which are sets of websites and pages.
A user's Collections (Kiddofy app for iPad).
Content shared by Friends, Collections curated by the team at Kiddofy, and trusted Collections curated by other Kiddofy users all appear in the user’s Collections tab in the Kiddofy app.
A Kiddofy user may invite others to trust content Collections they curate. This allows the curator to share websites or pages with their Collection’s Followers at any time simply by adding them to the Collection. For this kind of sharing, it is not necessary for the users to be Friends. This is advantageous for both the Collection’s curator and for parents because either might not want the sharing abilities that come with being Kiddofy Friends (we explain this more below, in Sharing Content Collections).
To make sharing amongst trusted Friends and Collections safe, Kiddofy enforces certain rules depending on the type of sharing, whether the user is an adult or child, and what we know about the content. Each type of sharing and these rules are described more below, but first we’ll explain what it means to curate content for children with Kiddofy and why it matters.
All content in Kiddofy is age-rated for appropriateness by the team at Kiddofy, a child’s parents, or an adult they trust. Let me explain...
When an adult uses Kiddofy to share a website / page, or add one to a Kiddofy Collection, we say they curated the content. Not only because they selected something they think is good for kiddos, but because Kiddofy also had them provide information about the content.
The following information is provided by Kiddofy content curators – those parents, teachers, aunts and uncles, coaches, community leaders, etc., who take the time to share great websites with the children they love – and becomes the content’s Kiddofy Profile.
A Kiddofy Content Profile (iPhone app).
The most important parts of a Kiddofy Content Profile are its restrictions, which are specified by adults only and control a child’s access to the content. All content in Kiddofy has the following four attributes configured and they cannot be modified by children.
In the curator’s own judgement, this is the minimum age for which the content is appropriate (e.g., All Ages, 10+, 13+, etc.). When selecting the age rating, the curator considers the website / webpage’s primary content as well as things like the types of ads or user comments that could also be present. It is intended to help Kiddofy protect children’s well-being by preventing access to content rated older than the child.
Being age-appropriate means a typical child who meets the rating’s minimum age will find the content:
You might think age ratings are subjective and depend on a family’s judgement, beliefs, values, culture, preferences, etc. We agree and that’s another reason why we think Kiddofy’s approach is so awesome. In Kiddofy, your child’s content is curated by you, someone you trust, someone they trust, or our team here at Kiddofy (and we let you block our Collections, if you choose).
This is the content’s Web address and is what’s presented by Kiddofy’s browser when selected. The curator may specify whether access to the whole website (i.e., all webpages from the same domain, such as “nasa.gov”) should be allowed or the webpage at the specified URL only.
The final restriction selected by the curator is the content’s expiration policy. This is the amount of time after which the content is automatically removed from Kiddofy. Most commonly, no expiration is selected. Though this comes in handy when parents want to give their child temporary access to something or when the content is timely in nature, such as the announcement of an upcoming event.
To support a better experience for kiddos, content curators may also provide the following information, used by Kiddofy for presentation. Because these attributes do not affect access or restrictions (described above), children may customize this information for content they curate.
Through our work as children’s content curators, we learned quickly that many websites designed for kids receive a Kiddofy Age Rating of All Ages, because they contain nothing harmful to a child’s wellbeing. However, that doesn’t mean their content is intended for, or enjoyable by, audiences of all ages. For example, a sixth-grade math website could have an Age Rating of All Ages even though it’s not interesting to most third graders.
To help Kiddofy match the right content level with each kiddo, curators specify the set of ages for children (and often adults) who will find the content interesting.
Webpages sometimes have a title, description, and / or profile pic specified by the webpage itself (i.e., available in its HTML), which Kiddofy provides as part of the content’s profile. Kiddofy also enables curators to provide these themselves, in case they’d like to spruce-up the profile to be more kid-friendly or callout what’s special or fun about the content. They may also select from a list of topics to further describe the content.
Users who are Kiddofy Friends may share webpages or whole sites with each other. As mentioned above, parents are automatically Friends with their children and sharing webpages is one way they approve content for them.
With Kiddofy, sharing is approving. There are no extra steps to configure controls for granting access. When a webpage is shared with a child, Kiddofy notifies them they’ve received new content and they can access it in the moment. Shared content being immediately available is one of the most important elements of Kiddofy’s design and part of what inspired our founders to build Kiddofy.
Sharing a webpage using Kiddofy is like texting a webpage to a friend, with one key difference. When a parent shares a webpage with Kiddofy, they have the extra step of setting the content’s Restrictions (described above) and any other Kiddofy Content Profile attributes they choose. Here’s how it works (iPhone app shown)...
The Kiddofy browser & Share button.
Sharing options in Kiddofy.
1. When viewing the desired webpage using Kiddofy’s browser, select the “Share” button and then “Share with Friends.”
Set the content's Restrictions.
2. Set the content’s Restrictions and select the “Share...” button at top. Optionally, set other Content Profile attributes by selecting “See all attributes.”
Select Friends and kiddos.
3. Select the children and Kiddofy Friends with whom you’d like to share. Then select the “Share” button to send them the content!
Select Safari's actions button.
Choose the Kiddofy app.
Adults can also share with Kiddofy using their favorite browser, such as Safari or Chrome.
Parents, and adults they trust, may share content with their children having a Kiddofy Age Rating older than the kiddo. This matches life outside of Kiddofy, such as when a parent allows their child to read a book, watch a show, or play a game that is intended for an older audience. Children develop at different rates and families have varied views on appropriateness.
In these cases, we encourage parents and adults to set the content’s Age Rating for the average child’s development, not their advanced kiddo’s. Kiddofy helps with this for websites we know by enforcing Age Rating rules. For example, if a parent shares the whole YouTube or Google website with their child, our system requires the Age Rating to be 18+ since portions of these websites contain content appropriate only for adults (and plenty not appropriate for anyone). You’ll see why this matters in the next section and how Kiddofy uses Age Ratings, below.
By default, Kiddofy uses the child’s birth age (year and month, provided by their parent – for privacy, we don’t ask for day) when determining content age appropriateness. Parents can optionally set an older or younger age for their child, if they’d like to allow content that’s more or less mature for their child. We call the age used for a child their Content Age.
As a parent, you might wonder... Really? If I allow my child to be Kiddofy Friends with other children, how can I be confident they will share only appropriate content? We’re glad you asked, because this is another cool part of Kiddofy’s design.
With Kiddofy, a child can share only what their parents have allowed for them in Kiddofy. So, when you trust a child, you’re also trusting their parents to a) allow only appropriate content, or b) set reasonable Kiddofy Age Ratings for their child’s content. This is how it works...
When a child uses Kiddofy to share some of their approved content with another kiddo, Kiddofy enforces rules based on the content’s Kiddofy Profile restrictions, including the following:
A website shared with Violet by MariaRox requires approval.
Parents review and approve requests and invites using the Actions tab in the Kiddofy app and they’re always able to review, and optionally remove, what’s been shared with their children.
The screenshot above shows a parent has invites and requests for their two children, Dashiell and Violet. Dashiell’s schoolteacher is sharing her Collection of classroom websites (explained more below); Dash requested access to JPL’s website; and Violet’s Friend, MariaRox, shared a website having an Age Rating older than Violet. Violet’s parent can select that tile to view the website and, then, either approve or decline the content from MariaRox.
Sometimes, objections with content aren’t only about age appropriateness. Often, they’re about preferences, family fit, or just a matter of a kiddo needing a break from something. Of course, parents choose who their child’s Kiddofy Friends are but there are plenty of cases where families approach things differently, even within friend groups or extended family.
Block a website for a child.
To give parents even more control, Kiddofy allows them to block content for their kiddos. If a parent wants to ensure their child won’t have access to a particular website, regardless of whether a Friend tries to share it, it’s part of an approved Collection (now or in the future), or Homework Mode is active, they can block it – permanently or temporarily.
Note: Kiddofy always blocks access to and sharing of websites we know to be inappropriate for all children, such as adult websites. Our list is always growing, though it’s never complete.
In addition to sharing individual websites or pages, Kiddofy allows users to share content Collections they’ve created and maintain (i.e., curate). This makes it really easy to manage groups of content for one or more kiddos, whether they’re the user’s own children, students, or members of their community.
Create Collections for your child’s work time, play time, reading, exploration, etc. Turn entire Collections on and off for each kiddo so their approved content matches the occasion.
Create a Collection of great websites for kiddos who love music, or cooking, or adorable animal videos. Share your interests with your children and others in your community.
Create a Collection of websites used in your classroom or for homeschooling. Share with your students and amongst your co-op. Using Kiddofy, children have safe access at school, home, and on the road.
Like Kiddofy Content Profiles for webpages (described in an earlier section), Kiddofy Collections also have a profile, which lets users know what the Collection is about and its intended audience.
A Kiddofy Collection Profile (the user would scroll to configure more attributes).
Collection profiles have some of the same attributes as content, including title, description, profile pic, age rating, age interest, and topics. The most important attribute of these is its Age Rating, which is separate from the Age Ratings of the content in the Collection. That is, each webpage or site in the Collection has its own Age Rating, as part of its Kiddofy Content Profile, which can be older or younger than the Collection’s.
Depending on how the Collection is shared, its Age Rating determines which kiddos are allowed access to the Collection as a whole (described more next). Regardless of how a Collection is shared, however, children may access content in the Collection having an appropriate content Age Rating only.
As an example, consider someone who would like to share great music performances (e.g., individual YouTube videos) with children. Since some song lyrics include language or themes appropriate only for older children, this curator can choose between two approaches...
1. Create separate Collections for each age group, putting songs having older Age Ratings in a Collection with the same Age Rating. In this case, the curator would need to know the Content Ages of each child so they share the Collection with the right Age Rating. Since much / most of the content appropriate for younger kiddos would also be interesting to older kids, this curator would also have to maintain duplicate content in each Collection.
2. A better way to go could be to create one Collection having an Age Rating young enough to include all its intended audience and let Kiddofy present to each kiddo only songs having an Age Rating appropriate for their Content Age and is interesting to kiddos their age. In this case, the curator doesn’t need to know their audience’s ages and they can maintain a single set of performances.
Kiddofy lets users share their Collections in two ways: a) automatic sharing with Kiddofy Friends and b) inviting others to trust the Collection. A Collection’s Age Rating is handled differently by Kiddofy, depending on which is used.
To share a Collection with their Kiddofy Friends or their own children, Collection curators simply select the option in their Collection’s Profile and Kiddofy automatically does the sharing.
Profile options to automatically share a Kiddofy Collection.
Since a Kiddofy user will likely have Friends and/or children with a mix of ages, Kiddofy will share the Collection only with those whose Content Age satisfies the Collection’s Age Rating. As described above, Friends or children will have access only to the Collection’s content having an Age Rating appropriate for their Content Age, regardless of the Collection’s Age Rating.
To share a Collection with specific Kiddofy users, including people who are not Kiddofy Friends, a Collection’s curator can send them an invitation to trust the Collection.
Invite a user to trust your Collection.
If the invited user is a kiddo, the invite is routed to their parents for review and approval. We call a Kiddofy user who trusts a Collection a Follower of that Collection because, like all shared Collections, they will receive access to its age-appropriate content at the time of sharing and all that is added in the future.
Since this sort of sharing is not automatic, but requires a parent’s approval, Kiddofy allows kiddos access to trusted Collections having a Collection Age Rating older than the child’s Content Age. However, Kiddofy still hides and prevents access to Collection content having an Age Rating older than the child’s Content Age.
This method of sharing is advantageous in a few situations...
The quickest way to give a child access to a webpage is to share the page (or site), using the page-at-a-time method described above (Sharing Webpages). However, when content is shared individually, parents must manage it individually.
When a Collection is shared with another Kiddofy user, they don’t receive a point-in-time copy of the Collection. Rather, they’re given access to the Collection’s content, which can be changed by the Collection’s curator over time. When content is added, removed, or changed in the Collection, it’s updated automatically for everyone.
Consider the following benefits of sharing content as Collections...
Imagine you’ve shared 10 websites with a child using the page-at-a-time method and now you’d like to share the same content with another child. In this case, you’d need to share each of those same 10 websites individually with the second child. If instead you created a Collection of those 10 websites, all you would have to do is invite the second child (their parents, actually) to trust your Collection.
Now imagine when you shared those 10 websites with a child a page at a time and you’d like to remove one of them or replace it with another. If the kiddo is not your own child, you cannot remove or change what you shared – only the child and their parents can remove their approved content. If you shared those websites as a Collection, however, making the changes is as simple as updating your Collection.
We described this feature in our blog post, Kiddofy v2: Parents, Homeschoolers, and Educators, and will borrow some of what we wrote to explain it here...
Blocking a Collection has the same effect as removing the Collection. That is, the Collection is no longer visible to the child and its content is not approved by the Collection. A great advantage of blocking Collections, versus removing, is that they can be unblocked to easily make their content available again.
Block a Collection, temporarily or permanently.
Collections available to a child are those curated by Kiddofy, Collections shared by the kiddo’s Friends or parents, and Collections trusted for them by their parents. Collections curated by Kiddofy (offered to all users) and those auto-shared by Friends cannot be removed for a child, but they can be blocked. For example, if you prefer your child not have access to fun and games for the moment, you can block Kiddofy’s Entertainment Collection.
The most common use of this feature is to temporarily block a Collection. When a kiddo’s approved content is organized in Collections, Kiddofy makes it super easy for their parent or teacher to change their landscape of approved content to match the occasion – work, fun, exploration – by selectively moving their content Collections in and out of availability. For instance, if you’d like your child to focus on schoolwork, you can temporarily block all Collections except those needed for school.
Kiddofy gives parents the tools and control they need to be confident when allowing their children to benefit from the wonderful resources available on the Web. Kiddofy also provides a platform for people to safely share the best parts of the Web with children, ensuring kiddos never run out of discovery, fun, learning, and inspiration.
Whether you’re a parent, or educator, who will control all your children’s approved content yourself or would like help from others you trust, try the features described in this post and see how your kiddos’ personal view of the Web takes shape.
Try trusting aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and kiddos from your friend group to be your child’s Kiddofy Friends. Encourage them to start sharing things your kiddo will enjoy.
Try using Kiddofy as your child’s primary browser (see note below). Create Collections of the websites they need and enjoy and see how Kiddofy makes it easy for you to be in control. Share the Collections with others in your community who use or would enjoy the same websites.
Put Kiddofy on an iPad or Mac in your classroom. Create a Collection of the websites you use for instruction and see if you feel more confident your students are safe.
Note: Kiddofy works alongside other browsers or, for full control / safety, you can make it your child’s only browser. Kiddofy does not affect what’s available to kiddos when using other browsers / apps. See our blog post, How To Setup Kiddofy as Your Child’s Only Browser, for more info and instructions.
Thank you for helping kids enjoy the Internet safely!
Kiddofy for Apple Mac and mobile devices (e.g., iPhone, iPad, and iPad Touch) is available in the App Store, FREE for families!
