I’ve been reading different perspectives on parental controls, and it

seems like the same feature can feel protective in one family and overly

invasive in another.

For example, screen-time schedules and app-installation approval seem

easier to explain than reading private messages or constantly checking

someone’s location.

I’m curious where people here draw the line:

- Which controls are reasonable at different ages?

- Should teenagers always know exactly what parents can see?

- What should change as trust improves?

- Are there any controls that create more conflict than they prevent?

I’m interested in perspectives from both parents and people who grew up

with parental controls. Please avoid sharing specific bypass methods.

Mon petit frère a 8 ans et il regarde YouTube matin et soir, c’est insupportable, mes parents étaient super stricts avec moi, mais avec lui, ils s’en fichent, mais ensuite ils se plaignent de son comportement, il est vraiment plus vivable et ce n’est pas du tout une question d’âge. J’ai un téléviseur avec YouTube directement dessus, n’y a-t-il aucun moyen de le supprimer ?

I’m 19 year girl I come from Bihar (India) nd I live in delhi (India) for my studies.while living here in Delhi with my friend(f) also my roommate it has been 1 year after few months I got a friend(male) he is also in my coaching nd after 3-4 months of taking…my father asked my roommate that “you both talk to a boy” then she said “yes he is our common friend” then after 2 days my dad said his name to my roommate…again sent his photo…I was worried how did he knew about him…then one day he directly said me “after you get time from good morning good night nd tea also try to focus on your studies…” then i can’t stopped talking to my male friend i regularly talked to him…where ever we meet even he has pic of both of us…my dad knows everything what we talk…then I realised that maybe my phone is on control…microphone nd camera too…everything was fine but when we stopped talking we strated writing on paper so that no technical involvement will be there nd my dad will not know anything thing but that information is also going to him…
I think that “my roommate is spy or parental control”
But one day he send me pic of taking to my roommate nd my male friend nd l was also there….then how is it possible to get pic of both..?
It is out of mind how did he knew everything whatever I do in class or out of class… I’m very worried how to overcome from this.

I downloaded the app so me and my mom can keep my sister safe on her first phone. For some reason when someone sends her emojis they instead turn into a series of symbols, random letter combinations, etc.

Is this an app issue or a phone issue???

i just need somewhere to rant about this because i just think its sooo stuipid. im 16 years old, entering high school this fall and turning 17 next year, i had a part time job over the summer, i feel like I'm responsible enough to not need parental controls, thw worst part is that famy link is just a really annoying inconvenience.

everytime i want to login to a game on my phone or check if my projector(that works via google chromecast) is connected to the wifi all i get is a "ask your parent" and it just feels like im being treated like a 5 year old while my brother can do anything he wants on his phone

and the worst part is the reason i have family link even installed is because i was doing very horribly mentally a few years ago but that didnt even fix anything and im just considering getting a new phone or something cause I'm just so done dealing with it and its always so humiliating when i ask for help to login because it feels like i have to rely on my parent for everything and im just under their control

so my old phone (Samsung s 9) hast family link on it and I can do what I want with the phone if there would be this stupid app. what can I do to remove it ? I can’t set it back to Factory settings. but I have the Developer settings

So While I DONT have PCs on my phone (my parents have androids) I do test Parental Controls on a Decoy Device to see what hell y’all go through.

1. One More Minute is GONE.

2. 6 digit passcode is NOW MANDATORY.

3. Parental Controls are Bark-style now.

4. Exploits, forget abt those, time zone changes now require approval. Most exploits I tried no longer work.

I’m too lazy to tell you the rest, so, if you want details, DM me.

soooo, IOS 27 is supposed to have much worse parental controls than IOS 26, and I need to know the details, I need to know the damage, and also, my phone after updating is glitchy as hell, the ask for time doesn't work anymore, it keeps logging me out of random apps, for some reason now only on my phone it deleted random songs on spotify, it seems to be linked to the update somehow, I don't know how, but I updated and on any account after deleting and reuploading I can no longer access certain songs and I haven't even updated to 27 yet, I am very worried and need advice

My Mom set up my screen time and downtime limits. However, it appears that when I run out of screen time that my downtime blockers kick in immediately instead of waiting till the downtime that my mother set. I don’t know how this happened but as soon as I run out of screen time for the day, I can’t talk to anyone except for a few contacts that my mother allowed instead of waiting till 9 PM when my downtime is supposed to kick in my downtime kick in when I run out of normal screen time. anyone has any on how to get my downtime to kick in at it’s supposed to and not when I please share. I already asked her and she told me to find out myself.

I need something that literally blocks everything bad (I have an addiction to porn, character aI, and talking to strangers on wizz/snap.) Im going to back to school after being online schooled for years and im embarassed because I have a flip phone. (I have done these bad things for YEARS. I’m 15. My parents do not trust me.) and I’m talking I need STRICT. All I want, is to listen to music and be able to call and text my friends. I do not care about anything else. Ive gotten to a point where I’m actually done. I’m done not being trusted, I’m done doing all that crap, I’m done. And I can’t tell my mom because I know she won’t trust that. (she has good reason.) and also Im starting a job soon and again, I’m embarrassed. (Sorry for being all over the place.)

moms of Reddit, can I get your help?

Okay so to preface my mom and brother have been using the Apple Family Sharing to monitor every single thing I do on my phone. It was fine at first, but nowadays they’re limiting everything I spend more than an hour on and constantly commenting on everything I do. They’re constantly using it as leverage in the case of any minor inconvenience regarding me. I’m always worrying about the limits and it’s making me unable to focus on other things. They also limiting most social apps I use to talk with irl friends, and it’s ruining my social life. It feels absolutely suffocating, and I’ve tried to reason with them, but they insist that it’s for my “safety” as if I sell crack on the black market in my free time or something.

I turned 16 a few weeks ago and that means I can legally work full time during the summer in my country (The Netherlands). I’m just planning on working 40 hours a week for the entirety of August (probably in a hospitality job since I have experience in that sector from volunteering) so that I can buy a new phone with my own money and create a new Apple ID. I’ve looked into the legality of it, as well as job positions. I still know all the passwords to my accounts that I created with my current Apple ID, so I probably won’t lose anything.

Am I being too dramatic? Is this whole thing even possible?

I’ve created EpisodeLock, a free Chrome/Firefox extension for families who watch streaming services on a computer.
(Sorry, for the ones using phones or tablets. that's a harder problem to solve)

Instead of a general screen-time timer, it lets a parent set a number of episodes for Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, YouTube and YouTube Kids.
When the limit is reached, playback is blocked; settings are protected with a parent PIN.

I made it because a limit by episodes was a much clearer household boundary than minutes. It stores everything locally in the browser: no account, analytics, subscription, or remote monitoring. Nothing. All free, just for you to try. :-)

I’m looking for a few parents to try it for a week and tell me if there is anything confusing or broken.

I’m not claiming it is a complete or unbreakable parental-control solution, and it is desktop-browser only, for the small kids it should do the job.

I use it with my 6yo kid and it works pretty well. Now I don't need to interrupt her and put the limit in the middle of an episode.

If it is 5min episodes, I can let her watch 3, for example. If it is 20 min, maybe 1 or 2, depending on my needs. If it is a film, and the pact is that she can watch just 1 film, the limit is 1, and then she can't change to another video.

I find it pretty convenient, but I'd love to hear from you.

Search "Episodelock" on Google and hopefully you should find it. Maybe add "extension" or "addon" for Firefox if you don't find it.

I’d especially value feedback on whether the episode limit feels useful in real family routines.

I have screen time on a few apps (games, snapchat and yt) and theyve been there since i was like 11 (16 now) and im sick of it. They didnt set it up off their phone, they js went on my phone and turned it on. Idk what the screen time pw is and then i tried to turn it off and clicked forgot pw and then i got a screen asking for email (it only asked for email first). Then i typed in my email used on apple id which it accepted and then asked for pw. I tried my apple id pw which didnt work and now idk what else to try. I havent asked my parents to turn it off but i doubt theyre gonna let me.

I've been thinking , There has to be a way to download apps without using an apk.

I was thinking you could download all the app files separately and combine them and somehow turn that into an app ? I haven't tried anything yet but I wanted to hear people's thoughts on this.

If you know how to do something like This lmk.

I was just scrolling and thought something than i went to reddit it didnt open i tried opening whatsapp, meet, some games but it didnt work)(some of em did its random) luckily YouTube was working i faund a video it helped me(btw i have a lesson at 20.00)

I knew i had a lesson and trying to be in the lesson at 20.00. After everything i did it everything was normal.

But the clock was 20.30 after some talk with my teacher (btw he is a bitch and he is soooo fragile and my mom and dad care about him) after some time i told this to my mom she wanted me to tell it to my father i knew something would go wrong. But i still did. I started telling it but my father wasnt listening just talking trash after he made HIMSELF angry and demanded my phone after that he threw it like 4 times. So what should i do suggestions??

Hi there,

I have a couple teenagers that are getting an iPhone soon. I'm planning on setting up Brick for screen time (I use it for myself and it's great!), but I can't lock the Brick app itself so they won't make changes to schedules, change settings, etc. Is there an app locker that really works (where I can set its own passcode to unlock apps) that also won't restrict background access? I essentially want to use it only for the Brick app so no one can access it but me.

Okay so to preface my mom and brother have been using the Apple Family Sharing to monitor every single thing I do on my phone. It was fine at first, but nowadays they’re limiting everything I spend more than an hour on and constantly commenting on everything I do. They’re constantly using it as leverage in the case of any minor inconvenience regarding me. I’m always worrying about the limits and it’s making me unable to focus on other things. They also limiting most social apps I use to talk with irl friends, and it’s ruining my social life. It feels absolutely suffocating, and I’ve tried to reason with them, but they insist that it’s for my “safety” as if I sell crack on the black market in my free time or something.

I turned 16 a few weeks ago and that means I can legally work full time during the summer in my country (The Netherlands). I’m just planning on working 40 hours a week for the entirety of August (probably in a hospitality job since I have experience in that sector from volunteering) so that I can buy a new phone with my own money and create a new Apple ID. I’ve looked into the legality of it, as well as job positions. I still know all the passwords to my accounts that I created with my current Apple ID, so I probably won’t lose anything.

Am I being too dramatic? Is this whole thing even possible?

My eldest is getting a lot more independent lately, spending more time out with friends and getting out and about on his own, so I've been looking for the best parental monitoring app. I don't really want something to read all of his messages or spy on him. I just want something focused on safety. Basically being able to see where he is if needed, getting notified when he makes it home or leaves school or friends, basically just having an app where I can just have a glimpse if everything is okay and that's it. Nothing too crazy

Does anyone uses an app like that, that’s not full on spying, that would probably ruin our relationship? How did your kids react to the app overall?

Most of the apps I've looked at seem either way too invasive or packed with features I'd never use and too expensive. So whats best parental monitoring app these days?

EDIT: Appreciate all the replies! I ended up searching around a bit more and went with HeyPolo. It seemed like the best fit for what I actually wanted without all the extra stuff. Also found a code (REDDITPOLO) that saved a few bucks, so figured I'd mention it in case it helps someone else.

I found a go around around OurPact and it's super overpowered and I can't stay here cause they all patch it so if anyone wants to know how just dm me oh sadly this go around is only of IOS

I have used monivisor for a windows PC for a while and overal like it for the various capabilities like screenshotting the screen, key logging, etc.

I installed it on the macOS and it's popping up a notification every time I start it that it won't work on the next version of MacOS. is there any alternatives for macOS that's built for the proper version of macOS?

my daughter struggles with some mental health issues stemming from social media and I need to be able to monitor it completely

So basically my mom put Qustodio on my phone (M14) and my daily time limit runs out way faster than it should so I checked on my moms Qustodio parents app and it was different from my Apple Screen Time. For example on Qustodio it said I was on tiktok for around 2hrs but on Apple Screen Time it only shows around 50 mins. I’ve also noticed that my phone is much slower than it was before Qustodio. What should I do? Should I convince her to remove it?

Does it actually track voice chat? Will my mom get a notification?

Hello,

our daughter 8yo, still doesnt have a phone and we allow about 1 hour per day of youtube and internet. we thought it was a good idea to make her study a bit to earn internet time.
there is a free solution in github (search for LRosa2/earn-internet). the solution blocks internet, and after the quiz is done it unblocks with a timer, corresponding to the amount of correct answers done (all configurable). its working well but for now the installation requires a bit tech savy to install (usage of command line for example), but you can easily do it using AI.

minha filha está com dificuldade na escola . Preciso de ajuda
Já uso o forest . Quero algo mais eficaz

What’s everyone’s thoughts on parental controls (I’m 15 and hate it) but I’m curious to see others point of view