Manage Screen Time settings for your child's device
Step 1 – On your Apple device, go to Family and select your child's name. Step 2 – Select Screen Time. Step 3 – Here, you can monitor your child's app and website activity. Or you can dive deeper into screen time settings for Downtime, App Limits and more, which you can learn about further in this guide.
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, scroll down, then tap Screen Time. Under Family, tap your child's name. Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions.
Screen Time gives you a better understanding of the time you and your kids spend using apps, visiting websites, and on your devices overall.
Bark's parental controls for iOS devices give you the power to monitor your child's online activities in a groundbreaking way. Our content monitoring uses advanced AI to scan messages, posts, comments, replies, web searches, and so much more to find potential dangers.
Apple, Google, and Microsoft all offer free parental control apps or settings to help you keep your kids safer online.
Family Link lets you set daily time limits, with School Time and Downtime schedules for their devices, so you can help your child find a healthy balance.
To change the amount of information that you can see, go to your child's profile and choose calls & messages in the rules menu. There, you can switch on or off 'Show message content'. You can also switch on or off monitoring completely by toggling 'Calls & messages monitoring' at the top.
Spyware is installed on your iPhone. Spyware is malicious software designed to secretly monitor your activity and steal your personal data. Once installed, it gives cybercriminals remote access to almost everything on your device—your location, call logs, text messages, and even what you're typing.
Using Downtime to disable a child's iPhone or iPad remotely
In order to have full remote control over your child's iPhone or iPad, a parent should have set up Managed Screen Time for their child and leverage the Downtime feature to disable the device.
When you create a Google Account for your child with Family Link, you can set screen time limits on their Android device or Chromebook. You can set your child's Android device or Chromebook to lock after they've used it for a certain amount of time or when you think they need downtime.
The main takeaway: Apple's parental controls appear to work only within its own apps and services, but leave major gaps when using third-party apps like YouTube and Chrome.
You can remotely control your other Apple devices with your iPhone. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Control Nearby Devices, then tap Control Nearby Devices. The device you want to control must be signed in to the same Apple Account and connected to the same Wi-Fi network as your iPhone.
Parental controls in accounts usually allow you to block access to adult websites, limit the use of devices to particular times, manage who your child can phone and message and who can contact them, and limit how much money they can spend online. It's the same for many games and specific apps.
Setting up comprehensive screen monitoring
The most comprehensive way to monitor a child's iPhone or iPad is to use an app like LivingRoom for Families , which uses screen recording to capture all activity on the device.
iCloud exploitation
Your iCloud account is a gateway to all your synced data, including text messages. Someone can spy on your messages by: Logging into your iCloud account from another device to view message backups. Using a shared Apple ID (common in families) to receive your iMessages on their device.
Recover deleted messages in Messages on iPhone
Field Test Mode for Apple iPhone devices
To enter Field Test Mode on an Apple iPhone, dial *3001#12345#* . Anyone can write up a quick “do this” blog, but at Celona, we're going to take it a bit further in the detail to help you get the most value from the Apple Field Test Mode.
Messages automatically uses the following screen effects for specific text strings:
You can double-tap or triple-tap the back of iPhone to perform actions such as taking a screenshot, turning on an accessibility feature, running a shortcut, and more. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap. Choose Double Tap or Triple Tap, then choose an action.
Important: To find your child's Android and compatible Fitbit device location or remotely manage their screen time and apps, you need the Family Link app. As a parent, you can use Family Link to do things like: Change some of your child's Google Account settings.
The best app for parental controls are Aura, Bark, and Norton Family. We recommend Aura Parental Controls for teens due to its unique "balance" feature, Bark for its extensive features and proprietary phone, and Norton Family for younger kids, based on its advanced web monitoring capabilities.
Life360 excels at location tracking and driving alerts, but lacks the monitoring and filtering features needed for full parental control. For digital safety, Bark is the better long-term option.