Parental Controls for iPhone & iPad – Guide for Parents

Believe it or not, with each passing year, the use of technology becomes pivotal even for kids. From e-learning to online classes, using a smart screen is nothing new in today’s age anymore. Therefore, with advanced technology and smart devices, the approach of iPhone parental controls has become robust. If you have kids in your house or family who spend excessive time on screens, it’s crucial to know how to set up iPhone parental control in order to protect your child. 

To set up restrictions on some specific website or block content on iPhone is something that still many people are figuring out. And if you are someone who does not know how to turn on parental controls on an iPhone, this is the right place where you have just landed. In this article, we shall talk about enabling parental control on your child’s iPhone or iPad in a simplified way. So, let’s scroll a few more times and get insights about iPhone parental controls. 

Why Do You Need Parental Controls on Your Child’s iPhone?

There are certainly times when you might have thought about how to set screen time on your child’s iPhone. And if your kid likes to play games on it, things become more pivotal. Setting iPhone restrictions is more like a demand of recent times. There could be many reasons you need parental controls on your child’s iPhone. 

Since parental control apps work as surveillance, they help parents and guardians monitor the kid’s on-screen activities on social media profiles, text messaging, emails, and other platforms. You certainly want to use parental controls on your child’s iPhone since it can block a few gaming features, such as using a credit card that you may not want to allow your kid to use. 

Moreover, tracking your kid’s location, cyber safety, online reputation safety, and the most obvious safety of backup data are a few of the reasons you would want to opt for parental control on your kid’s iPhone! 

Luckily, now you have various parental control options for iPhones that let you make things practical. 

How to Monitor Your Kid’s Mobile Device?

Parents are concerned about kids using smartphones and visiting anything that pops up on the screen. With increased smartphone usage, parents are talking about how to set child restrictions on iPhones!

Now that you have the privilege to know what your child is doing on the mobile device, it is still important to know how you can monitor your kids’ activity effectively. The top three ways to monitor your kid’s smartphone device are as follows:

1. Web Filtering

Website filtering is one of the most crucial aspects of iPhone parental controls to check and balance your child’s activities properly. Website filtering efficiently blocks the users from seeing or viewing specific URLs.

It prevents the browser from loading these sites; hence, the safety for kids remains fully highlighted. Moreover, it also works best for institutional and enterprise use.

2. App Monitoring, Messaging, and Time Restrictions

Many app monitoring, messaging and time restriction tools work best for iOS parental controls and have shown positive performance too. According to a survey, 48% of parents have reviewed their teen’s phone calls and messages through app monitoring tools.

3. Location Reporting

GPS tracker and location tracking are yet another wonderful way of monitoring a kid’s mobile activity.  It helps you get insight and report about the location that is targeted. Tracking the smartphone falls right when your concern is iPhone parental control. 

For iPhone and ad devices, managing the location reporting feature comes simplified without too many intricate steps that you cannot handle, even if you aren’t a tech geek. Additionally, you get many more features as a bonus when you turn on the Google products and services, followed by personalized maps, recommendations based on places you’ve visited, useful ads, and more.  

All in all, location reporting helps greatly when your kid is away from home and using an iOS device you are paired with. 

Set Up Family Sharing

Setting up family sharing on your kid’s iPhone comes with a super fun approach where you get the freedom to share access to famous Apple services like Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple News+, Apple Arcade, and Apple Card. And if you are a parent looking for a way out of how to turn on parental control iPhone, setting up family sharing is there at your service.  

By setting up the family group and inviting people to participate, you get to maximize parental control. With the family sharing group, you can add a maximum of six family members, plus you don’t need an Apple ID as a requirement.  

In a family sharing group, when a family member joins, they may see your email address and photos, followed by the storage each family member uses. 

Content and Privacy Restrictions

Content and privacy restriction lets you block or limit specific applications or their features. From restrained screen time to keywords filter, each approach has its own way of working for your kid’s safety.

For activating iPhone Content & privacy restriction feature, here are the steps.

•         Go to Settings and tap Screen Time.
•         Tap Content and Privacy Restrictions and enter your Screen Time passcode.
•         Tap Content Restrictions >tap Web Content.
•         Choose Unrestricted Access, Limit Adult Websites, or Allowed Websites Only.

It also works the same way for iPad and all iPad devices and helps you keep off the explicit content you want to avoid. 

Block App Store and iTunes Purchases

If you want to prevent your kid from downloading unnecessary tunes using the iPhone, blocking the app store and iTunes purchases would be pretty beneficial. You need to follow these steps to block App Store purchases and downloads. 

Go to settings and tap the screen time option. Now tap the Content & Privacy Restrictions section and look for the iTunes & App Store Purchases. It may ask you for a passcode; if so, provide it. Next, choose the setting and check the Don’t Allow option. 

Allow or Restrict Built-In Apps & Features Block Explicit Content and Content Ratings.

For adolescents and young kids’ cyber security, allowing or restricting the built-in apps and features has been a highlighted factor. 

You can indeed restrict or allow the default application of the iPhone. However, the best thing is the application will not be deleted if you activate or disable any of its features. On the other hand, it will be hidden from the main menu, and your kid won’t be able to find it from the Home Screen.  

There are plenty of built-in apps that you may like to hide or restrict access to. For instance, if you turn off the Mail app, it will no longer appear on the Home Screen till you turn it on. That ensures the screen time is worthwhile and helps check the child’s mental health. 

Limit Adult Websites/Web Content

If your kid is using an iPhone, iPad, or any iOS device, you need to ensure the restrictions and limitations for adult websites are working fine. From third-party apps to built-in features, you have the wider gamut to block inappropriate pop-ups and web content to which you want to block access. Furthermore, you can also limit access to the camera and sharing of photos to enhance cyber safety. 

That said, the iPhone features a website content filter that works on an auto-basis and automatically detects explicit and adult content. So, if the content is unsuitable for your child, the device will lock the website and will not allow the user to view it. Here are the steps you need to follow for limiting adult websites. 

•         On the iPhone Screen Time, tap “Content & Privacy Restrictions” and go to the “Content Restrictions that says Block inappropriate content.
•       By default settings, it is disabled, so enable Content & Privacy Restrictions by toggling the bar. The grey button should turn green when you toggle the feature on.

OR

•         Select “Web Content”. You will see the “Unrestricted Access”, already selected by default. Change it to “Limit Adult Websites.”
•         Now enter the screen time password, and your phone will ask you to restrict apps from Content Restrictions options by taking you to the new window. If you don’t want to restrict apps, scroll down to the Web Content option and select it.
•         Here, you will find options for limiting inappropriate web content, and you can set the phone to the Limit Adult Websites option.

Restrict Siri Web Search and Game Center

In a word, Siri is a virtual assistant, and it is Apple’s voice-controlled feature.  It is specifically available to remotely control various Apple products, including the iPhone and iPad. For restricting access to certain websites and content, it becomes essential not to let go of any factor. And when you are keeping the proper check on screen time, it is important to restrict Siri web search and Game Center as well.

So, to restrict the Siri feature, you must go to the settings and tap the Screen Time feature. Then tap the Content & Privacy Restrictions and look for the Content Restrictions features. Now scroll down to the Siri feature and select the settings that you want.

Mainly, with the restriction of the Siri feature, you can prevent:

• Web Search Content: It keeps off searching the web when you search for a query or a question.
• Explicit Language: It would keep Siri showcasing the explicit language that can leave a bad impression on your kid.

Interesting read: 15 Cool iPhone Hacks You Never Knew About 

Limit Game Center

The steps for restricting the Gaming Center are similar to what you have done to restrict the Siri web content.

Here is the step-by-step procedure. Go to the setting and tap Screen time. Then tap the Content & Privacy Restrictions and tap the Content Restrictions. Now scroll down, look for the Game Center, and select your desired settings. From the Game Center, you have the freedom to restrict the following features. 

•         Multiplayer games: It prevents the ability to play multiple games with anyone except friends.
•         Screen Recording: It also prevents the capture of the screen in any way and cannot prevent recording the audio.
•         Adding Friends: It prevents adding friends to Game Center.
•         Private Messaging: prevent the ability to voice chat and send or receive custom messages with games.
•         Profile Privacy Changes: Siri Game Center prevents the user from changing profile privacy settings.
•         Avatar & Nickname Changes: It also prevents the option of the Game Center’s friend list with third-party games.

Limit Location Services

Regarding iPhone parental controls and protection, the location parameter cannot go overlooked. The location tracking and GPS of iPhone and other iOS devices are robust, with complete security that fulfills parental control aspects. Plus, the simplified procedure is there to keep things user-friendly.

You may want to turn off location services such as maps and tracing apps for smooth security. For that, open Settings and select Privacy. Then find Location Services and toggle it off.

1. Set Up Screen Time

Setting up the screen times helps to a great extent. From keeping off eye fatigue to the behavioral aspect, you can opt for a screen time limit on the iOS device that your kid is using. However, if you are eager to know how to set screen time on your child’s iPhone, here is how!

•         First of all, go to the setting from your smartphone (iPhone) and look for Screen Time.
•         Now tap Turn on Screen Time and tap continue. After that, select “This is My device” or “This is My Child’s device.”

2. Enable “Ask to buy” in Family Sharing Options

Here are the important steps for enabling Ask to buy in the family option.

•         Go to settings from your iPhone or any iOS device you’re using and tap on the Apple ID name (usually located on the top).
•         Now, you should be in the Apple ID settings. From here, select “Family Sharing” (located above the list of the linked device).
•         After that, scroll to the bottom and tap on the “Ask to Buy” option, which is usually located right under More to Share.
•         At this point, from the feature description, tap on “Turn on Ask to Buy”.
•         Now, select the child in your family and toggle on the “Ask to Buy” for the certain user.

Set Up Parental Control on Social Media Apps

Setting up restrictions on social media apps on your child’s iPhone is important. If you see your kid spending more time on social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, or many more such apps, here is how you can set up parental control on them. 

•         From your iPhone, go to Settings, tap Screen Time, and select “This is My Child’s iPhone.”
•         After that, tap Downtime and configure the hours you want to keep your child offline. However, if you want to restrict the social media apps completely, tap the App Limits feature, and choose the app you want to keep your kid away from.

Disable Social Media Apps

Disabling social media apps and unnecessary software greatly and positively impacts your kid’s screen time. Apps like beauty filters, games, and monitoring applications are not good enough to keep things up to the mark. The endless social media scrolling leads your kids nowhere, and disabling social media helps boost their creative approach. 

Must read: Enable Parental Controls on Snapchat and Protect Your Child 

Educate Your Children About Digital Safety

Enabling parental control on your kid’s iPhone or any other iOS device can be challenging when you have to explain it to your kid. However, for digital or cyber safety, it is a crucial step that you must take.  

With excessive social media or screen exposure, brain activity gets affected and has the worst physiological impact on the growing kids and even adolescents. But if you talk about it to your kids, things become more understandable and trustworthy. 

Tell your kids about the downside of excessive phone usage and educate them about cyber security parameters. Teach your kids how to use the internet and not to indulge in any random WhatsApp or Facebook group. However, before having a word with your kid, it would be better to study digital safety fully to keep the conversation relevant and comprehensive.