iPad Setup & Parental Controls

[glitzy07]

H and I finally bit the bullet and bought our two boys iPads as their big Christmas gifts this year. We currently have Kindle Fire tablets that were gifts from my mom in the past, but I really wanted to get iPads since I'm an Apple user and they're just far more user friendly. The Kindles drive me crazy and I can't wait to pass them on to someone else.

That said, I want to do the work before they are given to them on Christmas morning of setting up all the appropriate parental controls and settings. 

I would love any and all tips and tricks for how you set your parental controls for your kids and also any apps you recommend pre-loading! My boys are 9yo and almost 7yo and I'll definitely want to add the educational apps that they use in school, as well as Spotify for listening to music and YouTube. But I do worry about YouTube and the rabbit holes they can get down, so I'm wondering if there are ways to limit within apps like that? Or if I just need to pay close attention if/when they're using that app?

Thanks in advance for any tips!

[mrsGreeko]

Apple screen time is pretty robust. They’ve closed a lot of the earlier loopholes, thankfully. It is imperative that you set up the screentime PIN from your device not their’s because otherwise they can just click “turn screentime off” from their device without needing the PIN. Also, make sure your phone is PIN protected with a different PIN that they don’t know, otherwise they can change some things like purchase sharing from your phone without needing the PIN. Also, do NOT allow purchase sharing because then any app you have on your phone, they can put on their device without having to “ask to buy.” Also, if any apps slip through “ask to buy” and they download them and then you delete them because you don’t want them to have it, they can download those again at any time without having to “ask to buy” again. The way to help this as a parent is while they still have the app you don’t want downloaded, set a time limit of 1 minute, then delete the app. That renders the app nearly useless if/when they try to download it again. If you delete the app first you can’t set a time limit and then they can just re-download it without your permission.

Also, block Omegle.com. This site is very dangerous and disgusting and kids find it and trust me that it is better to just block it on everything you can before they get to that point.

Can you tell I have way too much experience with kids getting around parental controls? Also, Google how to get around parental controls to give you ideas on how to close loopholes. Because guarantee your kids will Google it at some point.

[VillainV]

Set up an AppleID for each of them. Then set up family sharing and screen time (from one of your devices). You’ll want to make sure you limit which apps they can use, and to ask permission for purchases and downloads.

Messenger Kids is a good app. You can approve who they chat with.

[dcn]

I have safari disabled on my kids’ iPads and don’t have the YouTube app on them at all.

The screen time controls give you lots of options to put limits on what they can do and for how long.

[glitzy07]

Dec 12, 2022 18:12:03 GMT -5 dcn said:

I have safari disabled on my kids’ iPads and don’t have the YouTube app on them at all.

The screen time controls give you lots of options to put limits on what they can do and for how long.

If you disable Safari, can they still Google things? My kids love to “search up” (whyyyyy can’t it just be search!?) random stuff the same way they ask Alexa questions.

[dcn]

Dec 12, 2022 20:06:56 GMT -5 glitzy07 said:

Dec 12, 2022 18:12:03 GMT -5 dcn said:

I have safari disabled on my kids’ iPads and don’t have the YouTube app on them at all.

The screen time controls give you lots of options to put limits on what they can do and for how long.

If you disable Safari, can they still Google things? My kids love to “search up” (whyyyyy can’t it just be search!?) random stuff the same way they ask Alexa questions.

No, you can’t. You could set up controls?