to be tearing my hair out at Apple Screentime

[LunaandLily]

Posting here for traffic!

Can anyone help explain how DD is circumventing Apple’s screentime? I have her social media/YouTube/any other nonsense capped at 4 hours and yet she was away yesterday and managed to exceed this limit but about SIX HOURS. I did think it was odd that she hadn’t asked for more time (this comes through as a text message request to me and I have to accept or decline). I have changed my screentime passcode (again) and she was still able to use the apps I have limits on. She insists she does not know the password and I believe her - it is not something she would ever guess and I’ve changed it now anyway to something else I don’t think she would ever guess.

I have googled this so much and just can’t see an explanation that fits. Her settings are that she can not delete and reinstall apps without it coming through as a request to me, so it’s not that. I just don’t get it. On Friday screentime worked as usual, on Saturday, it doesn’t.

Can't speak for Apple but the Google controls have different limits for weekdays and weekends. Is it possible the weekends don't have limits?

No help, I’m afraid. The whole thing drives me crazy and it just doesn’t work properly. I think the reason is that Apple, and Microsoft and every other huge business involved in this shit show, do not want parents to have control. That’s at the root of it.

But I'd say if they are old enough for tiktok and Snapchat do they really need limits (other than,say, leaving it downstairs at bedtime)?

This. Have you accidentally set it for weekdays only?

She may be accessing apps from within the messaging app. If you look at the bottom of messenger there are tiny icons for some other apps such as YouTube .

You have my sympathy. Dd appears to use most of her brainpower on circumventing parental controls on various electronic devices.

Thanks @BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz @Whenwillglorioussummercome but frustratingly the limits are set for every day! (And unfortunately DD truly will lie in the foetal position on her phone ALL DAY without limits and confiscations - she was away at a friend’s yesterday and I thought I’d turn the limits off so she wasn’t sending me requests every hour. That’s when I noticed the limits had already been exceeded. And were exceeded until about 4am this morning!)

@CardiCorgi I will need to experiment with that, it’s certainly a possibility! Thank you

See if any of these apply.

https://jelliesapp.com/blog/kids-bypassing-screen-time#:~:text=Screen%20Recording%20to%20Discover%20Parental,bypass%2C%20disable%20or%20change%20limits.

@Aposterhasnoname thanks! Worked through these but no joy, none apply sadly.

Have you made sure that you set the controls to “block app after limit is reached” or whatever the terminology is?

I hadn’t done this and asked my DC how they’d exceeded the time and they told me! So now it blocked after a certain time.

@BettyBoomer Just checked and this is toggled to block after the limit is met. I’m mystified!

Unfortunately as the nice man who gave a talk to parents at DD's school said, our children are always going to be a step ahead of us. His advice is to have a charging area for devices (for the entire family), so that nobody has a reason for having them in bedrooms, at least overnight.
The other advice was to agree on a time when the devices will be put elsewhere e.g during homework time. Easier said than done, but we're trying it.

The timers next to her app useage suggest she's still within her limits - so the phone knows there are limits set but believes they are longer than you do.

Can you post a picture of the limit settings page?

I have her social media/YouTube/any other nonsense capped at 4 hours

Do you mean you have them capped at 4 hrs each? Or the category is capped at 4 hrs? If the latter I suspect that’s what going wrong.

I feel your pain - have spent forever trying to set up limits on DC’s iPads and it works so sporadically. And the perfect excuse for abusive DP to berate me for my shit parenting 🙄

I had a right time of it with the controls deciding that every Wednesday it would turn off all the apps at 6pm, despite me setting it at 9pm and it showing that in the controls. So I would have to accept the request every week to extend all the permissions. Absolute pain in the butt. Never did work out why, but switched off the controls over the summer and the problem hasn’t reoccurred, but it went on for months! Think the whole thing is faulty to be honest. Not necessarily your daughter being sneaky.

Do you know if she keeps switching her time zone/date to increase her limits? There was a way to stop it, but it no longer works. I told my DD I would confiscate the phone if she toggles the time zone settings to anything but automatic.

I like screen time in theory, but find I need to monitor it closely if I want it to keep working.

For whatever reason, she can now download apps without my approval, even though the appropriate setting is clicked on. I do see which apps she uses, so I can then manually limit them... it all takes time.

Another thing - I have one limit, for example, for tiktok and tiktok.com, so that it doesn't matter if she access it through the phone app, a browser on her phone, or a browser on her computer.

ETA: If all else fails, I sometimes have her restart her phone and restart mine, sometimes that gets rid of whatever the issue is.

If you have set it to say 10am / 2pm they get around it by changing the clock on the phone. As long as it doesn’t get to 2pm it doesn’t kick in

I know that there is an issue with apple app limits and they keep being deleted so not if this is another defect that exist.

Following with interest! We have had this problem with DDs phone. She admitted to knowing the password and turning them off but ever since I changed it it's still been happening, although less frequently!

Yep I find it to be very inconsistent in reliability too, it drives me MAD!

Thanks all for your input/sympathy! @Islandsadness The 4 hours covers all of the limited apps as a collective, not individually. Or, it did until yesterday!

She’ll be home soon and I’m going to try switching her phone off and on again - it works with most IT related issues. I don’t believe she is changing the time or time zone on her phone. I’m not sure how she would do that on an iPhone anyway, I’m sure it’s possible of course.

Changing the time is easy on an iPhone.
I would bet it's something like using airplane mode (which is how you fake location)

I know! If you change the time on your phone it resets the limits since it works them out based on 24 hour time zone. Is she going on clock / settings at all in screentime? That will show you yes or no.