The current climate of social media, AI content, misinformation, and messaging apps can be scary for parents and caregivers. This blog will cover the definition of parental controls, a broad overview of the types of tools available, and some tips for exploring what’s best for your family.
What Are Parental Controls?
Parental Controls are two things:
- The ability to distinguish between a “parent” or admin account, and a non-admin “child” account.
- The ability for the parent/admin to limit functions and features and/or track device usage.
How each family implements Parental Controls can look very different, depending on:
- The devices your family members have
- The apps and accounts you use
- Your family’s comfort with, and attitude towards, technology
When trying to help kids manage and use technology, there is no one right solution. Your family may need to try several strategies out, or adapt them as children get older.
Do Parental Controls Really Work?
We should first acknowledge that kids are smart! No matter what parents and caregivers try, kids can lie, find work-arounds, get hold of a separate device or make a separate account for a website, and more. So, while parental controls are useful, it’s even more important to have a conversation as a household.
In addition, once a child turns 13 in the US, they can legally opt out of many parental control measures. That age requirement comes from the Child Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA.
Start a Conversation
Implementing Parental Controls without having a conversation first can feel like a punishment. It also can feel unfair if children and teens are subject to strict screen time limitations while adults have no rules for their usage.
Can the family agree on what it looks like to have “good” or “bad” amounts of screen time? Can adults model healthy tech usage for the family? Will some areas of the house be “no phone zones” like the dining room table or bedrooms? Perhaps all cell phones are left to charge in a central spot overnight.
Kids can spend a lot of time in front of a screen, but that might not be a “bad” thing. As long as they are maintaining healthy social connections, getting enough sleep, and keeping up with their commitments. Whatever system works well for your family, start the conversation early and get kids involved in the process.
Tools
There are a variety of devices, apps, and tools in the category of parental controls. Below is a brief overview to give an idea of the landscape of options. In general, these tools are looking to monitor or control one or more of the following:
- Total screentime spent on a device
- Amount of time spent in a specific app
- Access to specific apps/purchases
- The content of a specific app (this is much harder to do)
Apple
Apple has an extensive parental controls section for its devices (iPhone, laptops, iPads, desktops). Once you have set up Family Sharing for your household accounts, the admin account can turn on Content & Privacy Restrictions, and begin managing Parental Controls.
Some of these controls include privacy restrictions, inappropriate content restrictions, app limits, setting certain times of day as “down time,” preventing app store purchases, and many more. Head over to their website to see Apple’s overview of their parental control features.
In September 2025, along with its iOS 26 release, Apple expanded its parental controls to allow for child accounts that continue for ages 13-17. This is a significant upgrade over the legally required protections for 13 year olds.
Android
Android phones and Chromebooks have a similar suite of parental control features to iPhones. Family accounts are managed through Google Family Link, and once the family accounts are set up, the admin gets access to Android Digital Wellbeing.
When a child turns 13, they can opt into a lesser version of supervision until they are 18. This lesser version won’t give admins access to things like chrome browser history or YouTube watch history.
Third Party Apps and Phones
Screenable for iPhone is a set of apps which can enact stricter parental controls than is offered in the base Apple suite. “Dumb phone” mode allows an admin to completely remove core features like the App Store and any internet browsers, essentially only allowing for phone calls on a phone (imagine!). “Screen trainer” mode lets caregivers monitor app usage and get notified when a child exceeds their time limits.
This Screen Trainer model gives more trust to the child to make their own behavior decisions, by letting them override the time limits. It also gives admins enough data to start a gentle conversation. For example “Hey, I noticed you were tired this week, and I also saw you overrode your time limit for YouTube five times, do you think those are related? Can we talk about it?”
Bark Phone is an android phone entirely designed with parental controls in mind. This company focuses much more on monitoring the content of messages and apps, and allowing admins to be alerted when certain subject matter comes up in conversation. You can purchase a Bark Phone with a phone plan. Or you can use Bark’s software for screentime and/or content monitoring on other devices.
Other Options
Multi-device solutions: Many companies offer parental control software that can be installed on multiple types of household devices. These include Aura, Qustodio, Net Nanny, and Bark (they do more than just Android phones).
Microsoft Family Safety manages Windows 10/11 laptops and Xboxes.
Kids can get non-phone alternatives to track their location without the extra screen distractions, like a smart watch. Some companies that do this are Gabb, Cosmo, Bark, and TickTalk, as well as larger watch companies like Garmin and FitBit. An Apple smart watch can be configured with parental controls.
Brick is a device which can be configured to block certain features on a phone when that phone is in proximity to it. Plenty of adults use it to “brick” their phones during work hours by configuring their Brick to, for example, silence all text notifications. Some families choose to use Bricks to silence everyone’s phones during dinner time.
There are timed lock boxes that can be used to hold phones overnight while letting them charge. Only the person with a fingerprint or passcode can unlock the box in an emergency overnight.
Some devices or tools work at a WiFi router level, to block certain traffic from specific websites for all the wifi-enabled devices in the home. This does not stop a cell phone from turning off wifi and getting broader web access from a cell tower, nor does it stop a laptop from connecting to a separate wifi hotspot.
Summary
To recap:
- Parental controls are more effective when introduced with a family conversation, the earlier the better.
- The tools available to caregivers can range from limiting time on certain apps or sites, to monitoring and reporting on usage content.
- Every kid and every family is different. Some children will need more guidance than others. This is all understandable, devices are hard to put down for all of us!
If you would like to continue discussing options for your family, or you want some help with implementing a solution, SDM is here to help. Call or email to make an appointment.
In the meantime, if you would like to learn more, we have slides from our recent presentation at the Melrose UU Church Thoughtful Thursday: Taming the Tech, and an SDM TechTalks video on our YouTube channel on this topic:
