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Apple’s iPhone has a host of parental control features that you can use to set time use limits and block content you feel is inappropriate. You can use these tools to help your child learn healthy online habits and guard them from more adult content.
The iPhone’s parental controls have many features, but it does lack some key ones. We’ll show you how to use the settings and suggest the best parental control apps that contain features the iPhone lacks.
To put parental controls on an iPhone, you’ll need to set up Family Sharing on your and your child’s devices. This will allow you to change parental control settings from the Family Sharing dashboard. It will also prevent a tech-savvy child from turning off the settings you change.
You can begin a new family group or join an existing one. If you are the parent or guardian of a child, we suggest setting up a new Family Sharing account. This can be done from an iPhone, iPad, or Mac computer.
The family organizer can set up Family Sharing by:
Parental controls aren’t just set up to block and monitor content. The feature can also help you avoid unknown charges by restricting apps, in-app purchases, and media purchases. The following features are available through Apple’s parental controls.
The Screen Time setting is what will allow you to manage several things on your child’s device; despite what the name suggests, you can do more than just set up screen limits. Through Screen Time you can set up content limits, choose what apps your child can use, and also manage privacy and security settings.
To turn on Screen Time through the Family Sharing group, do the following on your device.
For the parental controls you set up to work, the Content & Privacy Restrictions feature needs to remain turned on.
Screen time restrictions can limit overall time on the device and time spent on apps or types of apps. For instance, you can set social media use to an hour a day and overall phone use to three hours. When those limits are reached, you can set your child’s phone to become inactive except for emergency features like calling and location services.
You can also restrict device use during specific time periods like school and bedtime.
Apple’s parental controls come with two settings for controlling how your child uses their device. Downtime heavily restricts or deactivates the phone it’s on, while screen time limits are for specific apps or web content.
Downtime can give your child a forced break from their screen. When Downtime is enabled, your child will get a five-minute warning before it begins.
To set it up, do the following.
From here, you can manually turn on Downtime. It should remain on until you manually remove it. You can also schedule the downtime for specific times of the day.
To turn on time limits for apps, do the following.
You can choose to set limits for individual apps or for a category of apps. You can also set custom time limits depending on the day, which is useful if you want different limits on the weekdays compared to weekends.
To avoid surprise charges, you can place purchase restrictions on your child’s accounts. This stops them from purchasing content from Apple, including apps, in-app purchases, media, and other content.
To activate:
While Downtime restricts the entire phone, you can also restrict certain apps and features. For instance, you could disable email and FaceTime if you didn’t want your child to have access to either of those. You can also toggle the apps back on if you decide those are appropriate.
To toggle features off and on:
Apple monitors content using a rating system, so you can disable content altogether or set it to only show content based on the ratings you choose.
It’s worth noting that Apple only sets content ratings on the information it controls, such as music ratings on Apple Music or podcasts through the Apple Podcasts app. Apple can’t filter videos within the YouTube app or what is sent across social media.
To set content restrictions:
Apple can filter web content on iPhones and restrict what Siri is allowed to search for on your child’s device. Both involve setting certain rules that your child’s device will use to determine what content is delivered to your child. Remember that all of this is automated, and you should still regularly engage with your child about their online activities and habits.
You can choose whether or not Siri searches the web when you ask a question. You can also stop Siri from displaying explicit language.
You can customize the following iPhone privacy settings.
You can customize the following settings.
Family Sharing has more benefits than just parental controls. This feature included with Apple products is an encrypted way to share information and allows you to purchase an app or service once and share it with the whole family.
Some of the features include:
Unfortunately, yes, parental controls are a necessary and essential way to keep your child safe both online and from developing a tech addiction. Parents are not only contending with an internet full of adult content (and some things even adults shouldn’t see) but also the growing issues surrounding children who have too much screen time.
Parental controls can help mitigate the online dangers children face daily. These can include but aren’t limited to:
Apple’s parental controls are great for limiting screen time and filtering out undesired content, but they do lack additional safety features. For example, the ability to scan your child’s interactions for signs of self-harm, sexual activity, and predators is sorely lacking from Apple’s parental controls.
We love that Apple includes free controls in its interface to help parents, but if you want to go deeper, there are parental control apps that can do more. Third-party apps like Bark, Aura, and Norton Family can set limits and restrictions and also notify you of other threats, such as self-harm talk and strangers contacting your child.
If you need more than what Apple offers, consider the best parental control apps listed below. They are in-depth, come from reputable companies, and have been tested repeatedly by us. We’d be comfortable using or recommending any of these services.
Parental Controls
Best for
Best overall
Best bundled identity protection
Best for bundled antivirus protection
Price
Plan costs $14.00/mo
Starts at $8.25/mo (billed annually)
Plans costs $49.99/yr
Learn more
Get Bark Premium
Get Aura Parental Controls
Get Norton Family
All of the parental controls on iPhones are located under Settings, and most are located under Screen Time. From there, you can set screen time limits, filter gaming mode, block apps, and more.
No, you’ll need to have Family Sharing enabled with each child profile before enabling parental controls. Family Sharing is free and easy to set up on your Apple devices. It takes only a few minutes, and you can begin customizing your child’s phone settings immediately.
iPhone parental controls give you some metrics on your child’s iPhone activity. It’ll break down where your child spends most of their time and how long they’re on their phones. You can even see your child’s location if you enable location services.
Unfortunately, you won’t have alerts to what your child shares in texts, but you can log into their iCloud account and manually look through all their text messages.
Bark, Aura, and Norton Family are all good options with additional features to protect your child. Bark offers a phone that comes preinstalled with its software. Aura includes cyberbullying alerts while kids are gaming. Finally, Norton Family gives detailed summaries of your child’s activities, including search terms your child entered into their search engines.
Apple’s parental controls are mostly within the Screen Time section of the settings menu and offer a lot of control. You can control purchases, search settings, and even what times your child can access their phone (although we recommend always allowing them access to certain trusted adults for security purposes).
For parents who want security alerts, access to emails, and early warnings for topics like self-harm, extra tools might be the better option. We’ve included information on some of the best parental control apps available to fill in the gaps where Apple falls short.
Although the internet is everywhere in our modern world, you can have peace of mind knowing that parental controls help you teach your child how to access it safely and responsibly.
Robust parental controls to track, monitor, and limit device usage
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