Navigating technology might be one of the trickier parts of parenting. On the one hand, study after study shows how detrimental certain aspects of technology can be for a child’s brain. On the other hand, we live in an age where not knowing how to use technology can become a liability.
As a mother, I see all of the angles, and I do not have an easy answer.
My husband and I have parented with intention, and despite our best endeavors to do our best when it comes to our children and their devices, we have failed multiple times. We have erred on the side of being too strict, erred on the side of being too lenient, assumed things were fine when they weren’t, and muddled our way through the mess of parenting and technology.
Today I want to share a recent discovery I made regarding iPhone settings, thanks to my friend Lindsey who enlightened me one day while sharing her own challenges regarding her children and technology. The minute she pushed a few buttons and showed me a world of options I did not know existed, I felt a wash of hope. I wish I had known about these settings sooner, and I hope they help you as you parent your child.
In the same way that Lindsey showed me the path and then sent me on my way, I too am going to illuminate a direction and let you explore all the details on your own. This is not a technology tutorial, but once you know where to look, you can easily research all the options. I found the process to be very intuitive, and only once did I have to google a question that I couldn’t easily find the answer to on my own.
I am going to assume that your child is set up on an iPhone under your parental account. This means that you set the parameters and security features on their phone, and ideally, all of this is protected behind a passcode that only you know. If you are not starting here, I would encourage you to make sure those safety measures are in place first.
With those pieces in place, here we go.
On your child’s phone, click Settings (the app that looks like a gear). Next, scroll down and click on Screen Time. Screen Time is where you will find everything you need. When I got overwhelmed with options and couldn’t remember where I found a certain feature, I always remembered that everything was found somewhere in the Screen Time menu.
Once you are inside Screen Time, you have five different menu options to explore, and each provides a layer of protection. When combined, you can turn your child’s device into a massively locked down piece of equipment with very little access to much of anything. There have been situations where we have activated a combination of options that left our child only able to place a phone call to me or my husband. She literally could not do anything else. Having that as an option feels like a relief. Sometimes we need them to be able to call us, but we don’t want or need them to have access to anything else.
Here is a brief description of each menu under Screen Time…
DOWNTIME MENU.
Downtime allows you to determine when your child’s phone is available for use of any kind. If their phone was a retail store, then downtime represents the hours the phone is closed for business. If you set Downtime from 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m., then they can use their phone between the hours of 7:00 and 10:00. If they try to access their phone at 10:30, say, it won’t allow them access to anything without your permission. You can set downtime according to whatever suits your needs. The biggest takeaway is downtime can prevent late-night phone access.
APP LIMITS MENU.
The App Limits menu will provide a way for you to limit the amount of time your child spends on specific apps or a specific category of apps (Games, Social, Utilities, etc). You can limit all categories, a single category, or a single app. The customization options are epic. You may choose not to set a limit on the Calculator app, for example, but you can still set a limit on their favorite game. Let’s say they have Candy Crush, but you only want them playing for thirty minutes each day, then you can set a limit on the Candy Crush app. After they play Candy Crush for their allotted thirty minutes, the app shuts down.
COMMUNICATION LIMITS.
This is where it gets really good. Communication Limits allows you to control who your child can communicate with. These limits will exist in the context of any other limits you have set in the other menus. So, for example, if you have set an app limit that allows for texting only one hour a day, inside of that hour, they can only text the contacts for whom you have given them permission inside the communication limits. You can see the possibilities here for a very powerful set of controls. In the midst of a serious phone grounding phase, we reduced my child’s contacts to me and my husband. End of story. This allows her to have a phone and communicate with us, but otherwise she was cut off from contact with friends, which was part of her grounding.
ALWAYS ALLOWED.
The Always Allowed menu is a way to decide what apps your child can have access to all the time. I find it helpful to think about this decision first instead of trying to decide what apps I want to restrict. For us, when no one is grounded, we allow our children to always have access to Camera, Apple Music, Messages (texting), and Phone. That’s it. Everything else is under some sort of limit. Basically, this option will allow them to take pictures, listen to music, and communicate by phone or text. However, this limit exists inside the downtime options, so they always have access to Apple Music, but only when they are allowed to be on their phone. I know that sounds confusing, but it starts to make sense once you get into the menus. You may have a longer list of apps that make sense for your child to always have access to depending on their age or school responsibilities, but just remember that if needed, you can shut their phone completely down inside this menu option by not choosing any apps. As with all of these menus, the power comes in the combination of features and limits. Decide what is important for you and your child, and then customize accordingly.
CONTENT AND PRIVACY RESTRICTIONS.
When this feature is toggled on, you can set parameters on the kind of content that your child can view. This menu offers broad, generalized safety features, and I cannot think of a reason not to have it on and set to the strictest settings at all times, particularly if your child is young.
We cannot keep our children in a bubble, and knowing how to use technology responsibly is a life skill you want them to have before they leave the house. This will require you to allow them to fail and learn from their mistakes while they still live at home. You are right to be fearful and protective, but you are also going to have to figure out the right time to let them go.
The technology parenting road is not easy, but hopefully with a few tools in your arsenal, you feel better equipped to step up to the task and serve your child well while protecting them wisely.
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