Our family seems to constantly be on the move. We both grew up moving from place to place first with our parents, and now with our family. We seem to have a big problem with itchy feet.
One of the most important things for families that do this is finding a way to communicate with loved ones via long distance. Well for us there is Facebook, Skype, Whatsapp, Instagram etc. But is it really kid friendly? Unless the parent is there constantly looking over their children’s shoulder, the answer is no.
My son just recently turned 9 but like his dad, seems to be very technologically savvy. Here is an example. About a year and a half ago I got both of my kids ipads and put on the parental control features on the web browser, as well as YouTube kids for them to watch age appropriate videos.
Well, Gabe got frustrated with not being able to watch the gaming channels that he used to watch, so he completely bypassed the app by using Safari and going directly to YouTube that way. My point is that no matter how secure you think you have made things for your kids, if they are determined, they will find a way.
This is where we come to monster messenger. Most families now a days have cellphones and no land lines. Some young kids might have cellphones, but ours do not. Monster Messenger is a cute, free, kids friendly app. This app lets kids send and receive pictures, messages and short audio clips to parent approved contacts. The best part is that you get a notification for any friend requests, messages sent etc. to make sure that your kids are safe.
We are not getting paid to review this app. We just wanted to share Monster Messenger because our kids love it.About Monster Messenger:
Monster Messenger was created by the eduPad team. eduPad is a startup based in Paris, France, which publishes educational apps under the iTooch brand. iTooch apps, a portfolio of 160 apps covering CCSS curricula from 1st to 8th grade in Language Arts, Math and Science, have been downloaded 8 million times since 2011. eduPad’s founders, Daniel, Stéphane and Jérôme, are passionate about the potential of tablets and smartphones for education, and committed to bringing to market apps that help children grow and learn with fun. We’ve received more than 100,000 users’ feedback from the in-App feedback feature in our iTooch Apps from children, parents, and teachers, giving us an unmatched insight into children’s and parents’ needs. It turned out that a lot of this feedback was generic thoughts about children’s’ needs and issues with tablets. Specifically, the main concern was about communication needs/ issues:One morning in June 2015, they decided they had to do something to address these needs/issues, and boom! Monster Messenger’s concept was born. They decided to craft an app which would bring children the best of social networks’ features to a secure environment that would foster parent-child communication. We stated that Monster Messenger’s mission would be dual: 1- to educate children so that they are prepared when they join social networks in the future 2- to help parents re-connect with their children It is a marvelous, never-ending journey we have just started, and we hope a lot of educators and parents will join us and enlighten us with their feedback and personal experiences along the way.
- Children were asking to connect with their friends, to collaborate and chat with them;
- Parents were praising our apps but were complaining they found it in general more and more difficult to connect with their children as they were inexorably absorbed by their screens;
- Teachers were raving about educational apps but wished kids would stay away from inappropriate social networks before they were allowed to, because they risked exposing themselves to bullying, violence, and abuse.
Monster Messenger App. A kid friendly app.
Why Kid-Safe Communication Apps Matter for Military Families
Military families live in a particular communication reality: grandparents across the country, family friends scattered across every duty station the family has passed through, and extended family who rarely live nearby. Keeping children connected to these important relationships while protecting them from the unfiltered internet requires tools that general-purpose social media platforms are not designed to provide. Monster Messenger addresses this gap directly, and it does so in a way that is specifically practical for families that move frequently and need to maintain connections across long distances.
When Gabe bypassed the parental controls on his iPad within eighteen months of receiving it, the lesson was clear: any technical barrier a motivated child can work around is not a barrier at all. What Monster Messenger provides is not primarily a technical lock. It is a curated environment where the contact list is parent-controlled, the content is limited to age-appropriate formats, and the parent receives notifications for every friend request and message. The protection is systemic rather than purely technical, which makes it significantly more robust against the creative problem-solving of a tech-savvy nine-year-old.
Monster Messenger Features: What It Actually Does
- Parent-approved contact list. No child can receive messages from anyone not explicitly approved by the parent account. Friend requests go to the parent for review before any contact is established.
- Photos, messages, and short audio clips. Communication formats are limited to these three types, covering everything a child wants to do while excluding video calling, location sharing, and open-link formats that introduce risk on broader platforms.
- Parent notifications for all activity. Every message sent or received, every friend request, and every audio clip generates a parent notification. Awareness rather than surveillance is what responsible digital parenting actually requires.
- Free and device-agnostic. Runs on iOS and Android, requires no subscription, and works on tablets or phones depending on what the family uses.
- Educational framing. The eduPad team built Monster Messenger to prepare children for eventual social media use by teaching communication norms in a safe environment first. That design philosophy sets it apart from apps that are simply locked-down versions of adult platforms.
Other Kid-Safe Communication Tools Worth Knowing About
- Messenger Kids (Meta): The child-specific version of Facebook Messenger with parent-controlled contact approval. Familiar to families already using Facebook and available in many countries.
- Kinzoo: A family communication app designed for staying connected with extended family across distances. Particularly good for grandparent-to-grandchild communication with photo sharing and video calling.
- Google Family Link: A parental control suite for Android devices covering app approval, screen time limits, and location tracking. Pairs well with a messaging app for full coverage.
- Bark: A monitoring service that scans messages from young users across multiple platforms for signs of bullying, inappropriate content, and safety risks, then alerts parents. Useful for older children on more open platforms whose parents still want visibility.
Setting Up Monster Messenger: What to Expect
Setup is straightforward. The parent creates an account, the child creates a linked account, and the parent approves the contacts who can communicate with the child. For military families, this means approving grandparents, aunts and uncles, and close family friends who are geographically scattered. Everyone in the communication chain needs the app installed. For grandparents who are not particularly tech-savvy, this may require a brief call to walk them through the installation. In our experience, the motivation to communicate directly with grandchildren is sufficient to get even the most reluctant grandparent through the setup process.
The Bigger Picture: Digital Safety as Ongoing Conversation
Tools like Monster Messenger are one component of a broader digital safety approach. The technical controls create a safer environment. But the most important element is ongoing conversation. Children who understand why certain platforms are appropriate for their age, what risks they will encounter on more open platforms, and how to recognize inappropriate contact are fundamentally more protected than children who are simply restricted without explanation. Restrictions without understanding create workarounds, as Gabe demonstrated clearly at age nine.
Monster Messenger buys time — time during which children communicate safely with known contacts, and time during which the conversations about digital citizenship can happen before the stakes of a broader social media environment become real. Used in that spirit, it is an excellent resource for any family navigating the challenge of raising digitally connected children in a world that moves faster than most parenting advice can keep up with.
How Our Family Uses It Day to Day
In practice, the primary use case for Monster Messenger in our family has been keeping the kids connected to grandparents and cousins during the periods between visits. Military life means visits home happen on a specific schedule tied to leave windows and PCS calendars. The gaps between those visits — which can be six months to a year — are where the relationship-maintenance work happens, and for children that work needs to be low-friction and naturally appealing rather than something that feels like an obligation.
Monster Messenger hits the right balance for that use case. Gabe and Lily could send photos from school projects, short voice messages about things that happened during the week, and pictures of the most recent food they thought looked weird or funny. Grandparents could respond in kind. The exchange does not need to be structured or substantial to be meaningful. The cumulative effect of small, frequent contact through an easy-to-use app is a relationship that feels current and close rather than one that exists only in the memory of the last in-person visit.
Using It During Deployments
One dimension of child communication apps that does not get enough attention in most app reviews is the deployment context. When David has been away for work, the ability for Gabe and Lily to communicate with approved contacts — including him, when connectivity allows — in a safe, parent-monitored environment matters in ways that go beyond convenience. Children of deployed parents benefit from maintaining routine communication patterns, and a kid-safe messaging app provides a format for that communication that does not require adult supervision for every exchange.
The short audio clip feature is particularly valuable in this context. A 30-second voice message from a child to a deployed parent, or back, carries emotional presence in a way that a text message does not. The asynchronous format — sent and received whenever connectivity allows on both ends — means communication can happen across time zones and limited bandwidth in a way that scheduled video calls cannot always accommodate. For military families managing communication across deployment windows, this feature alone makes the app worth installing.
Tips for Getting the Most Out of Kid-Safe Messaging Apps
- Set up contacts before you need them. Do the grandparent onboarding before the PCS move, not after. Setting up the communication infrastructure while everyone is in the same place is significantly easier than troubleshooting app installations over the phone from a new duty station.
- Create a communication routine. Scheduled message exchanges — every Sunday send a photo of something from the week, for example — give children a structure that makes maintaining the habit easier than purely spontaneous messaging. Routines reduce the activation energy required for any repeated behavior.
- Involve grandparents in the content. Ask grandparents to send photos of things the grandchildren will find interesting: the family pet, what the yard looks like, something from their daily routine. The kids receiving those messages build a mental image of the grandparent environment that makes them feel connected to a life they are not physically part of.
- Use voice messages for emotional moments. When a child is excited about something, sad about something, or just wants to share a specific feeling, a voice message captures that in a way text cannot. Encourage children to reach for the audio clip option when they have something to say that has emotion behind it.
Monster Messenger is not a perfect solution to every challenge of raising connected children in a digital world. But it is a well-designed, free, genuinely functional tool that addresses a real and specific problem for families that need to maintain close relationships across distance. For military families in particular, it is worth installing and worth sharing with the extended family members who want to stay close to your children between visits. The technology exists to make those connections easier. Monster Messenger is a practical way to use it.
USANOOKS Microfiber Cleaning Cloth Grey - 12 Pcs (12.5"x12.5") - High Performance - 1200 Washes, Ultra Absorbent Microfiber Towel Weave Grime & Liquid for Streak-Free Mirror Shine - Car Washing Cloth
$6.98 (as of April 22, 2026 14:12 GMT -08:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
Lucas Oil 10005 Red 'N' Tacky Grease - 14 Ounce
$7.48 (as of April 22, 2026 14:12 GMT -08:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
AIDEA Microfiber Cleaning Cloth, 50PK, Microfiber Towels for Cars, Premium Wash Cloths, Dusting Cloth Cleaning Rags, Absorbent Towels for SUVs, House, Kitchen, Window, Cleaning Supplies12×12"
$15.99 (as of April 22, 2026 14:12 GMT -08:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
CERAKOTE® Ceramic Headlight Restoration Kit – Guaranteed To Last As Long As You Own Your Vehicle – Brings Headlights Back to Like New Condition - No Power Tools Required - 10 Wipe Kit
$17.95 (as of April 22, 2026 14:12 GMT -08:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
