Giving in to the pressure to give your children their own iPhone or iPad is completely understandable.
Today it can feel impossible to shield children from the digital landscape–especially as they get older and start demanding more independence.
This is why finding the right balance between protecting them from harm and enabling them to connect with their peers is one of the most valuable parenting skills you can develop.
This article explores some strategies to ensure your children can safely navigate the online world using their Apple devices.
Strategy 1: Consider Installing a Parental Control App on their iPhone or iPad
A parental control app is software designed to help you monitor, manage, and restrict your children’s activities on their digital devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers.
These apps aim to promote safe and healthy use of technology by enforcing boundaries and protecting kids from inappropriate content, online dangers, and excessive screen time.
Some of the most common features of parental control apps include:
Content Filtering: Blocks access to inappropriate websites, apps, or online content.
Screen Time Management: Sets limits on how much time kids can spend on their devices or specific apps.
App Monitoring and Blocking: Allows parents to monitor app usage and restrict access to certain apps.
Location Tracking: Provides real-time location updates.
Activity Reports: Gives insights into how and when the device is being used.
Social Media Monitoring: Tracks activity on social platforms to spot potential cyberbullying or harmful interactions.
Call and Text Monitoring: Keeps an eye on incoming and outgoing messages and calls, with the option to block specific contacts.
Safe Search and YouTube Restrictions: Ensures children are exposed only to age-appropriate search results and videos. Note that most parental control apps don’t handle autoplay – here’s how to turn it off directly in YouTube’s own settings.
The 3 Main Parental Control Apps for iPhone and iPad
Qustodio
Basic: $54.95 per year
Complete (includes game and app time limits): $99.95 per year
Qustodio has helped over five million parents manage their children’s digital activities with effective parental controls. It can identify, filter, and block thousands of apps from your children’s devices
It has industry-standard parental control features like web and app filtering, time limits, location tracking, scheduling, and activity reports.
Qustodio has two different apps for iOS: the one you install on your child’s device and another one that you install on your own device to access your dashboard.
Should you use Qustodio?
It depends on what you’re looking for. While easy to manage, it can be expensive and lack some crucial features such as social media blocking. It’s also worth noting that Qustodio’s YouTube monitoring amounts to enabling Restricted Mode – for a full breakdown of what each tool actually does for YouTube, see our YouTube Kids alternatives guide.
Qustodio Pros
- Comprehensive time restrictions
- App blocking
- Cross-platform support
- Calls & texts monitoring
- Youtube monitoring
Qustodio Cons
- Expensive
- Smart kids can bypass web filter by using a VPN
- No social media monitoring
Kidslox
Basic: $28.28 per year
Family (includes YouTube history and bad search alerts): $44.45 per year
Kidslox is another popular parental control app for iPhone and iPad.
It’s got some has some great features that make it easy to keep an eye on what your kids are doing online, like:
- Setting time limits for your child to use his phone.
- Blocking specific apps on both Android and iOS.
- Instant lock when your child breaks your set rules.
- Displays a live map for you to see where your child is.
Who should use Kislox?
We think Kidslox can be ideal for parents of young children who are just starting to use smartphones and tablets.
Kidslox Pros
- Easy to install and use
- Comprehensive screen time tools
- Accurate Live Location
Kidslox Cons
- Default Web filter doesn’t have customization options
- Doesn’t allow to set screen time limits for specific apps
- No phone call, SMS, or social media monitoring–but it takes screenshots.
Bark
Basic: $54.95 per year
Complete (includes game and app time limits): $99.95 per year
Bark is considered the best social media monitoring app.
Unlike traditional parental control apps that focus on tracking and restricting a child’s online activity, Bark prioritizes open communication and trust. Bark monitors a child’s device for potential issues like cyberbullying, online predators, and self-harm, alerting parents to concerns.
It monitors texts, photos, and videos on your child’s device, and it stands out by allowing you to monitor 30+ social media platforms and apps at the account level.
Who should try Bark?
Bark is ideal for parents of older children and young teenagers who want to know what they are doing on social media.
Bark Pros
- Monitors 30+ social media platforms
- Detects if children creates alternative social media accounts to bypass monitoring
- Automatically scans all photos and videos on child’s devices
- Website and app filtering (however more basic than competitors)
Bark Cons
- It only monitors activities that trigger an alert
- Doesn’t allow time limits settings for specific apps
- Installation on iOS can be tricky
Strategy 2: Explore iOS native parental controls on your child’s iPhone or iPad
The good news is that you don’t have to be limited to using a third party app to protect your kids from unsafe content online.
Did you know that you can use your phone’s native settings to limit the type content your children are able to see on their phones?
With the Screen Time settings, you can turn on Content & Privacy Restrictions to manage content, apps and settings on your child’s device. You can also restrict explicit content, purchases and downloads, and changes to privacy settings.
Apple’s parental controls are important tools that allow parents to choose how — and how often — their children can use their devices. Parental controls are built directly into each iPhone, iPad and Mac. For a detailed comparison of how Apple Screen Time stacks up against Google’s equivalent tool, see our Family Link vs Apple Screen Time guide.
Here are some step-by-step instructions on how to apply restrictions to your kids’ iPhone and iPad.
How to Turn on Content & Privacy Restrictions on iPhone or iPad
When you set up Screen Time on your child’s device, you can set age-related restrictions for content, purchases and downloads, and privacy settings. If you decide you want to set this up later, you can turn on Content & Privacy Restrictions in Screen Time.
- Open the Settings app, then tap Screen Time. If you can’t find it, type “Screen” on the search bar and it will be the first option that appears.
- Under Family, choose your child’s name. Or, if you’re editing your child’s iPhone directly, just scroll down to find the Restrictions section.
- Under Restrictions, tap Content & Privacy Restrictions. If asked, enter your Screen Time passcode, then turn on Content & Privacy Restrictions.
If you turn off Content & Privacy Restrictions, any parental controls that you turned on will be paused until you turn on Content & Privacy Restrictions again.
How to Turn on Parental Controls for your Child’s Device
After you’ve turned on Content & Privacy Restrictions, you can set up specific parental controls.
To make sure your parental control settings are synced across the devices in your Family Group, update all of these devices to the latest software version before turning on parental controls or changing your parental controls settings.
How to prevent App Store purchases
You can prevent your child from being able to install or delete apps, make in-app purchases in apps installed from the App Store and more.
- Open the Settings app, then tap Screen Time.
- Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions. If asked, enter your passcode.
- Tap iTunes & App Store Purchases (or App Installations & Purchases).
- Choose a setting and set to Don’t Allow.
You can also change your password settings for additional purchases from iTunes, App Store, Book Store or Apple TV app. Under Require Password, choose Always Require or Don’t Require.
How to allow or restrict built-in apps and features on your kids’ iOS devices
You can restrict the use of built-in apps or features. If you turn off an app or feature, the app or feature won’t be deleted, it will just be hidden from your Home Screen temporarily. For example, if you turn off Mail, the Mail app won’t appear on your Home Screen until you turn it back on.
- Open the Settings app, then tap Screen Time.
- Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions.
- Enter your Screen Time passcode.
- Tap Allowed Apps & Features.
- Select the apps you want to allow.
Please note that while changing these settings hides these apps from the iPhone, it doesn’t delete them.
How to prevent explicit content on iPhone and iPad
You can prevent the playback of music with explicit content and films or TV programmes with specific ratings. Apps also have ratings that can be configured using content restrictions.
- Open the Settings app, then tap Screen Time.
- Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions, then tap App Store, Media, Web & Games.
- Choose the settings you want for each feature or setting under Allowed media Services Content.
You can restrict the following content:
Music, Podcasts, News, Fitness: prevent the playback of music, music videos, podcasts, news and workouts containing explicit content
Music Videos: prevent finding and viewing music videos
Music Profiles: prevent sharing what you’re listening to with friends and seeing what they’re listening to
Movies: Prevent movies with specific ratings
TV Programmes: prevent TV programmes with specific ratings
Books: Prevent content with specific ratings
Apps: Prevent apps with specific ratings (or Unrated apps in the EU)
App Clips: prevent app clips with specific ratings
Restrict Games
It is also in this section where you can restrict access to games, however they only apply to games that use Apple’s Game Center features.
- Open the Settings app, then tap Screen Time.
- Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions, then tap App Store, Media, Web & Games.
- Scroll down to Game Center, then choose your settings.
You can restrict these Game Center features:
Multiplayer Games: prevent the ability to play multiplayer games with everyone, allow with friends only or allow with anyone
Adding Friends: Prevent the ability to add friends to Game Center
Connect with Friends: prevent the ability to share a Game Center friend list with third-party games
Screen Recording: Prevent the ability to capture the screen and sound
Nearby Multiplayer: prevent the ability to enable the nearby setting
Private Messaging: prevent the ability to voice chat, or to send or receive custom messages with game and friend invitations
Profile Privacy Changes: prevent the ability to change profile privacy settings
Avatar & Nickname Changes: prevent the ability to change Game Center avatars and nicknames
How to prevent unsafe web content from showing on your kids’ iPhone and iPad
In this same section, iOS and iPadOS can filter website content automatically to limit access to adult content in Safari and other apps on your device. You can also add specific websites to an approved or blocked list, or you can limit access to only approved websites.
- Open the Settings app, then tap Screen Time.
- Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions and enter your Screen Time passcode.
- Tap App Store, Media, Web & Games.
- Tap Web Content, then choose Unrestricted, Limit Adult Websites or Only Approved Websites.
Restrict Intelligence & Siri
- Open the Settings app, then tap Screen Time.
- Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions, then tap Intelligence & Siri.
- Choose your settings.
You can allow or restrict these Intelligence & Siri features:
- Image Creation
- Writing Tools
- ChatGPT Integration
- Siri & Dictation
- Web Search Content
- Explicit Language
- Maths Results
Parting words
While technology offers incredible opportunities for learning and growth, we need to prioritize the safety and well-being of our children.
By combining the use of effective parental control tools, such as those outlined in this article, with open communication and consistent guidance, we can empower our children to explore the online world safely.
At Streamu, we believe the goal is not to completely restrict our kids, but to guide them towards a healthy relationship with technology.
By creating a safe space with open dialogue, setting clear expectations, and providing ongoing support, we can use technology to nurture our children’s needs for exploration and independence in a healthy and balanced way.
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