This post brought to you by OurPact.

“My child will never have a smartphone!” might not be the best parenting strategy for technology. You KNOW we are not big fans of “never” because you’ll get bitten in the butt faster than wearing meat pants to a pitbull convention. “Never” is hard to back away from, and even trickier to enforce. And meat pants just smell rancid.

Granted, you may think that avoiding technology eradicates the whole problem of too much screen time and too much sharing, but does it really? Maybe what you’re really missing is the opportunity to teach your kids how to use and respect mobile world wide web access.

The smartphone is not going away, folks; in fact, it is busily staking claims as an essential part of your children’s education. Ellen’s daughter would not be surviving 11th grade without the scientific calculator app and the ability to write papers in Google Drive on her phone as she travels home from her tennis matches.

But social media can be a beast, even for adults. Case in point, Gwyneth Paltrow could use a little guidance unless it’s actually her publicist’s plan–in the spirit of all press is good press–for her to stick her social media Manolo in her mouth every ten seconds. We just think crow can be pretty tough to swallow without millions of dollars to soften it.

Since it’s not really the smartphone, per se, that is the problem, but what it gives your kids access to, the first step to taming the beast is to educate yourself about social media. But don’t sweat that because we wrote a social media primer–Tips For Handling Social Media With Your Kids-covering everything from Snapchat to Vines and all of the gigabytes in between.

In our post, we  shared about some parental control apps too. While these don’t take the place of talking with your child about all things social media, they do serve as training wheels for the internet. Since we wrote that post, a new app has hit the scene: OurPact. If time marches on, tech time quadruple steps and we need to hustle together to keep pace.

What sends our sensibility senses tingling with this one? It’s more than its superb functionality, it’s OurPact’s philosophy:

We feel that parents and children should work together to create balanced schedules that fit each family member’s unique routine. To that end, we’ve built a powerful tool that removes barriers to parents direct involvement in their children’s technology use.

They had us at “work together” because kids get a little riled up when you just lay the hammer down on their access. OurPact even makes scheduling and app management recommendations based on your child’s age.

How you can manage your child’s mobile phone use with OurPact:

• Schedule internet and app time according to your children’s schedules with the ability to vary it up between the weekdays and weekends.
• Set the number of hours your children spend on the internet or within apps.
• Block access to internet or apps at-a-touch.
• Allow more time and access at-a-touch.

This app functions as a time management tool, too, because it helps you teach your child that homework time is a time free from pinging distractions. Your child can still use her phone as a calculator or to look up the inventor of the grilled cheese, but the distractions of Instagram and Snapchat  can be blocked.

What we really appreciate about OurPact is it’s at-a-touch responsiveness. Life with kids is unpredictable and a schedule is only as good as it’s flexibility. Big brother’s soccer game spilling into dinner time? You can grant instant access with the touch of a button to keep little sis’s mind off of her growling stomach.

OurPact also realizes technology cannot just be teased out as ONE part of your child’s life, it is integrated into ALL parts of it. Besides giving you peace of mind and teaching kids about the responsible use of the internet, this app can also help you manage household chore lists and rewards. Can you believe it?! We know!

A mobile phone gives your child a wide-open portal to the carnival that is the internet. OurPact helps you manage that access to harness the good the internet has to offer.

OurPact’s mission is clear: “Let us help you strike a perfect balance.”

And our sensible advice is clear: “Never say never, but never wear meat pants.”

-Ellen and Erin

Discover all that OurPact has to offer and get it for yourself in iTunes. Coming to the Google Play Store at the end of April.

This is a sponsored post written by us on behalf of OurPact, but all opinions and desires to help you guide your children in the use of the internet are our own. And the advice on neat pants? Definitely all us.

Find our other parenting tips and Sisterhood Secrets on Pinterest.