Amazon Launches Dashboard To Help Parents Monitor Their Kids’ Content Habits

Amazon has launched today a brand new dashboard that enables parents to monitor content consumed via its child-friendly FreeTime service. With the new dashboard, parents can see up to 90 days worth of viewership stats as well as impose limits on consumption times and even set educational goals, Amazon says.

FreeTime is available for free and also as a paid subscription option, featuring a massive trove of of kid-friendly books, movies, TV shows, educational apps, and games beginning at $2.99 per month. Amazon says it has 10 million FreeTime users; the service is exclusively available on Fire tablets, Kindles, and Amazon Fire TV.

The new Parent Dashboard is a mobile-optimized website, available here, and also features Discussion Cards, which Amazon is billing as a way for parents and kids to connect outside of the digital realm. Discussion Cards provide quiz questions, games, and activities for parents based on their kids’ content habits that aim to spark real-life conversations. The Cards are written by Amazon’s in-house content team, and are currently available for thousands of titles.

“As kids learn and play more independently with their tablets, we want to provide parents with more ways to join in that digital discovery,” said Amazon’s director of kids and family, Kurt Beidler. “Discussion Cards also offer ideas for real-world activities families can do together, like participating in community service or working on an art project — all inspired by what kids are doing in FreeTime.”

Amazon isn’t the only video platform with new tools in the works for parents. Google is reportedly developing a dashboard called Family Link that will enable parents to monitor settings on their childrens’ YouTube Kids accounts remotely.