To ask for a good parental control app?

[nothingcomestonothing]

I use qustodio, but my 12 year old can glitch it (on his Samsung phone) to get round the block on YouTube and the time limits. He is not able to self regulate and needs the external management of his screen time at the moment.

I've been looking into different apps, but qustodio seems to get the best reviews and it's not working for us, so I don't want to fork out for a different one and be in the same position. Any recommendations please?

None of these apps are really fit for purpose - there's always another way round, and millions of children around the world (plus Reddit) will always beat a single company trying to stop them; standard IT security rules apply here - once an attacked (the child in question) has physical access to a device, the game is lost.

I know that sounds fatalistic, but it's true and holds in almost all circumstances.

Ergo...keeping it out of his hands is the single best way of doing it. Everything else will be a compromise.

Maybe I should buy a phone jail instead?!

If it's genuinely critical that he doesn't exceed his screen time by much, then...yes, that'd probably be the best option. Certainly a lot better than the eternal game of whack-a-mole and false sense of security that results from using these apps - you'll never quite know whether he's managed to figure out a way round it or not, and he'll eventually get the impression that you're always suspicious of him.

There’s accessibility on iPhones you can put a timer on and then it switches off

We use the Google family link app. Both our kids have phones for school and a tablet. We use the Nintendo app for the switch. Both find it difficult to self-regulate so we find this works best for us. We also have parental controls on the internet (my husband has designed that himself)

Thanks all, it's hard when the DC understand the technology better than I do.