How To Unlock Parental Controls On Iphone

Better late than never, device and phone companies are realizing that parents are concerned about their child's wellbeing on their devices.

For example, Instagram has wellbeing info for parents on their main site and T-Mobile is offering parental control options and advice. T-mobile is also partnering with Circle, a monitoring tool for our kid's online activity. Efforts like these means more help for us parents fighting the uphill battle of keeping our kids safe and emotionally well in the current digital world.

The iOSupdate just released iOS 12 which has some tools to help you set up a safety net on your child's apple device. Apple Ios12 Update Parent Controls Tools Info How To Set Up

Set Content & Privacy Restrictions

Via: Apple support

More iOS 12 Updates That Help Us Parents

We can:

Prevent iTunes & App purchases.

This is a good lesson for us. When my son was 5, we spent $400 on Clash of Clans just by clicking too many times!! Thank God we got the money back. 😉

Go to Settings and tap Screen Time.
Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions. If asked, enter your passcode.
Tap iTunes & App Store Purchases.
Choose a setting and set to Don't Allow.

Restrict the ability to use the build in Apps

Do you ever feel frustrated when you get want to delete an App, you get it shaking but then the X is missing from some of the Apps? That has changed! Now on your child's phone, you can choose whether or not they are able to use each App, even the built-in ones.

Go to Settings > Screen Time.
Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions.
Enter your Screen Time passcode.
Tap Allowed Apps.
Select the apps that you want to allow.

Restrict explicit content

We were able to do this before, but don't forget to comb through each setting and set up the rating for each. Including Siri ;). My 6-year-old was using Siri dictation to text her brother and spoke into the device "Stop it." Siri texted her brother "F*** U", Siri's a cusser if we don't instruct her otherwise! While you're at it Restrict Siri's ability to do web searches, that can get sketchy fast.

Restrict game center functions

By now I'm sure you've heard of all the predators, over 75,000 to be specific, who are using online communities, especially gaming, to reach our kids. It is extremely important that we use these built-in settings to protect our kids from gaming with strangers.

Go to Settings and tap Screen Time.
Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions, then tap Content Restrictions.
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
Adding Friends: Prevent the ability to add friends to Game Center
Screen Recording: Prevent the ability to capture the screen and sound

More info in:

How to Protect Your Kids from Cyber Stranger Danger

What web content our kids are exposed to:

pic via: Apple Support

Control privacy settings on your child's device

A law just passed in the state of California to protect our child's privacy online. We hope this continues to spread.

For more info about this, go to:

Legislation for the Digital Safety of our Kids | Parents Take Action, California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA)

Return to the Screen Time-Privacy Restrictions

Here are the things you can restrict:

Location Services: Lock the settings to allow apps and websites to use location
Contacts: Prevent apps from accessing your Contacts
Calendars: Prevent apps from accessing your Calendar
Reminders: Prevent apps from accessing your Reminders
Photos: Prevent apps from requesting access to your photos
Bluetooth sharing: Prevent devices and apps from sharing data through Bluetooth
Share My Location: Lock the settings for location sharing in Messages and Find My Friends
Microphone: Prevent apps from requesting access to your microphone
Speech Recognition: Prevent apps from accessing Speech Recognition or Dictation
Advertising: Prevent changes to advertising settings
Media & Apple Music: Prevent apps from accessing your photos, videos, or music library