Most parents give their kids a phone with the intention to keep them safe. It’s simply the easiest way to communicate when we are not together. Period. But if you’re not using iPhone Parental Controls, you are giving your children the keys to the car, with a full tank of gas, no maps, and no rules of the road.
In a few simple steps, you can limit exposure to questionable content, and help your child build agency as they develop the skills to navigate a technology-reliant world.
How to Set up Parental Controls on iPhone
- In your child’s iPhone, go to Settings from your Home Screen
- TAP Screen Time
- TAP Content and Privacy Restrictions
- TAP Content Restrictions
- TAP Ratings For to use the ratings systems for specific countries
- On the Content Restrictions screen, you can set books, music, podcasts and news to the Clean setting. This limits explicit language or subjects. If you tapped United States, for instance, you can select an age rating for TV shows and film, i.e. TV-14, TV PG, PG-13.
More Parental Controls
In this same iPhone section, you can set up a couple more useful Parental Controls.
- TAP iTunes and App Store Purchases to limit purchases from the App store
- TAP Allowed Apps if you want to disable iPhone apps like Siri, Safari, or the iTunes Store. Keep in mind that this only affects apps that come with the iPhone, not third-party apps such as SnapChat or Instagram.
As parents, we want to believe that our children aren’t posting inappropriate content — and hopefully they aren’t. But if we use the driving analogy, the real danger is the other drivers on the road. Giving your child unlimited access to the media “open road” exposes them to things you can’t control — unless you filter them using Parental Controls.
You’re the co-pilot. Buckle up.
