Mom Develops App Kids Can 'Ignore No More'

There are a handful of things you can count on most teenagers to do: post selfies to Instagram, spend hours surfing Tumblr, and ignore their parents' phone calls.

And while kids will certainly be kids, Houston mom Sharon Standifird intends to put a stop to evasive cell phone treatment.

In partnership with developers, Standifird recently launched Ignore No More: an app that lets parents remotely lock their child's phone if they refuse to answer their parents' calls. The app forces children to respond in order to receive a password to unlock their device. It will still allow for emergency calls, however.

Standifird was inspired to create the app after a day of ignored calls and texts to her teenage kids.

"We need to develop an app that just shuts their phone completely down [and] they can't even use it," Standifird told CBSNewYork. "And I … literally just started researching how to develop an app."

That grew into a startup, Mountaineer Technology Ventures, which the school teacher launched in 2013. Her intent: to "develop innovative technologies to improve the lives of mobile device users," according to the company website. Ignore No More launched in the Google Play store last week.

With Ignore No More, kids who are slow to pick up are locked out of calls or texts to friends, games, and Web surfing. Once they respond to mom or dad, parents have the option to unlock the handset, or leave it off limits for a while.

"How's that for parental control?" the site said.

Parents open the app to lock their kids' devices: Just tap the appropriate name, enter a four-digit code, and the device locks. On the other end, the child can choose from one of the parent-selected contact numbers saved in the app, then call and get the appropriate password.

"Well, I thought it was a good idea," son Bradley Standifird told CBS. "But for other people, not me."

Savvy kids can override the app by choosing to deactivate the admin role from their phone, though any attempt will result in an email notification to the parent.

Ignore No More is currently available to purchase in the Google Play store for $1.99.

Standifird hopes to Mountaineer Technology Ventures into an app-developing machine, promising future mobile utilities and games "that are designed for mobile device users that simply want to get more from their phone."