Fellow parents, please remind me if there is anywhere in the world where the love for your gadgets outweighs that you have on your wards. Yet, it doesn’t take from the fact that our devices particularly the mobile phones have become so intimate and more or less a confidant. We feel safer now to have important and confidential information about us on the mobile phones now than any other place and I doubt if anyone would want such information mistakenly deleted.

However, that is what happens when the kids have unlimited access to your mobile phones. The dilemma however is that you can’t totally keep your wards away from your gadgets in this information age, else you make them timid and pay for it later in life.

So, the wisest thing is to balance the love. Check the influence of your gadgets on your wards and control how your kids access your mobiles. If you have an iPhone, it’s a lot easier to do this.

There’s a feature in the new iOS 6 software update for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch which can temporarily lock down an app, freezing all the hardware buttons including the Home button. The software lets you draw zones on the screen that won’t react to taps or swipes.

It is known as the Guided Access. The feature works on any iPhone or iPad that has been updated to iOS 6. Once updated, the user can turn it on from the Settings menu.

Here’s how to baby proof your phone using the Guided Access

*On your iPhone or iPad home screen, tap Settings, General, then scroll down to the bottom of the page and tap Accessibility.

*Scroll down from this page again to the Learning section, tap Guided Access and then switch it on.

*Now, open the app that you want to babyproof and click three times on the Home key. Immediately, the app will freeze and a frame of Guided Access controls should appear.

Here, draw a circle anywhere on the screen to disable taps or swipes in a specific area. Once you’ve drawn your circles, you can drag or resize them with your fingertips.

* At the bottom of the screen, you can switch off touch and motion input altogether, or tap the Options button on the iPhone to reveal those settings.

After all these, tap the blue Start button in the top-right corner of the screen and your wards can never get access to your secured applications. then let your tyke loose.

Meanwhile, you can turn off Guided Access mode by triple-clicking the Home key again.