How to Set up Screen Time on Your iPhone

Asking your kid to put down their phone over and over again is like going to the fridge repeatedly and thinking new food might magically appear. It’s not going to happen. You can take the “fight out of the phone” with a few simple steps using Screen Time — a feature of iOS12 for iPhone, iPad and iTouch.

To Family Share or Not to Family Share. That Is the Question

Family Sharing allows up to five family members to share iTunes, Apple Books and App Store purchases, as well as an Apple Music Family subscription and iCloud storage plan. Your family can even help locate each other’s missing devices. Each family member can have their own Apple ID and still use Family Sharing.

With Family Sharing, you don’t need your child’s phone to set up Screen Time or make changes. Without it, you’ll need your child’s phone to set this up.

How to Set up Screen Time Using Your iPhone

If you have Family Sharing set up:

• Go to Settings on your iPhone
• TAP Screen Time
• TAP your child’s name. At the top of the screen you will see a graph of your child’s most used apps (this will have info for either Today to Last 7 Days)
• TAP Downtime to set a time frame when the Apps you select will be unavailable
• TAP App Limits to select categories of Apps you want to limit during downtime
• TAP Always Allowed to select Apps that are always allowed – even during Downtime
• TAP Content and Privacy Restrictions to block inappropriate content
• TOGGLE Include Website Data to restrict inappropriate content from the web

You can set a Screen Time passcode so your child is unable to change the settings you’ve made. The code allows you to grant additional Screen Time if the scheduled time runs out. You can monitor their phone usage and see what App categories they use most by looking at their settings.

How to Set up Screen Time Using Your Child’s iPhone

Here, you’ll basically be using the above setup on your child’s phone.

• Go to Settings on your child’s iPhone
• TAP Screen Time
• TAP Downtime to set a time frame when the Apps you select will be unavailable
• TAP App Limits to select categories of Apps you want to limit during downtime
• TAP Always Allowed to select Apps that are always allowed – even during Downtime
• TAP Content and Privacy Restrictions to block inappropriate content and set privacy restrictions for the Apps on your child’s iPhone
• TOGGLE Include Website Data to restrict inappropriate content from the web

Screen Time allows you to set some basic limits on your child’s iPhone without relying on them to decide when enough is enough.

A family meeting and a conversation about content and time limits can be a way to approach this subject without it feeling like a punishment. As for that constant fight over the phone — a mutual victory just might be in sight.

Curious about more iPhone Parental Controls?

Check out Screen Time vs. OurPact review and how to set up Location Services in iPhone.