Setting Up Your Child's First Phone with Parental Controls

Use the system built into the phone

Use the free controls that come with the phone. Add paid tools only if you find a gap later.

• iPhone: Family Sharing plus Screen Time. You manage it from your own iPhone, iPad or Mac. If you're on Android, you'll be limited to setting rules on the child's phone itself.
• Android: Google Family Link. You manage it from the Family Link app on any iPhone or Android phone.
• Carrier family apps and third-party monitoring apps: paid extras. They add things like message alerts or web filtering on cellular data. Most families don't need them for a first phone. Consider them later for an older kid.

Account first, rules second

The key move is a child account with the real birthdate.

• In the US, kids under 13 must have a child account. The cutoff varies by country.
• A child account is what turns on purchase approval and stops your kid from switching the controls off.
• If you set the phone up under your own account or a padded age, the controls are weak or can be removed. Fixing it later means signing out and starting over, often with a full reset of the phone.
• Keep a credit or debit card on your own account. Apple, and in some countries Google, checks it to confirm you're the parent before it creates a child account.

Hand-me-down phone? Before anything else, sign out of your own Apple Account or remove your Google account. Then erase the phone:

• iPhone: Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Erase All Content and Settings.
• Android: Settings > System > Reset options.

If you skip the sign-out, Activation Lock or Factory Reset Protection will block setup later, and your old photos and messages can stay on the phone.

Start a week out. Phones often need a 20–60 minute software update right out of the box, and you don't want that happening on holiday morning.

The shortcut experienced parents use is to update both phones and sign in to your own account (with two-factor turned on) earlier in the day. Then the evening session is just setup.

Start tighter and loosen on a schedule

Giving permissions later is far easier than taking them back. Pick the closest starting point and put a review date about 4 weeks out on your calendar.

• Ages 8–10: approve every app, contacts-only calling and texting, downtime 8 pm–7 am. On Android, whether you can limit contacts depends on the phone model and app version.
• Ages 11–12: approve every app, an age-matched content rating, 1–2 hours a day for games and social combined, downtime 9 pm–7 am.
• 13+: a higher content rating, purchase approval only, shorter downtime. On Android, a teen can turn off supervision at 13 (the age varies by country). You get notified, and the phone locks for 24 hours. Agree on the rules together before that birthday.

Spend your time on Always Allowed and on who can contact your kid. Phone, Messages to family, Maps, school apps and the alarm clock should work even during downtime.

Save time by limiting whole categories (Games, Social) instead of setting a timer for every app.

How to tell it worked

Only trust what you've tested on the kid's phone:

• ☐ Installing an app sends a request to your phone, and nothing installs until you approve it.
• ☐ An adult website is blocked in the browser.
• ☐ Downtime kicks in when you set it to start 2 minutes from now, and you've set the real hours back afterward.
• ☐ The phone's location shows up on your phone.
• ☐ Your kid doesn't know the Screen Time passcode or your Google password.