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Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

Parental controls for teens

1 reply

DadsNotMum · 05/06/2023 08:03

I know this may sound like over-parenting but our 14YO DS with ADHD has serious phone addiction behaviours. We have been using Google Family Link to help with this but have struggled with a couple of key issues with the app.

Firstly, it only allows one unlock/lock period in each day so we can't, for example, unlock the phone first thing in the morning to check homework, lock during school time, and then unlock for the journey home.

Secondly, we want to allow him to use Spotify, Messaging and WhatsApp at any time as music really calms his adhd behaviours and it's easier to stay in touch by text. Family Link does allow this but it's incredibly clunky and requires you to change the settings every time the phone locks ("Always On" only works when time has expired, not when "Downtime" is enabled).

I'm trialling Qustodio which is much better and simple for the first problem but seems to have absolutely no "always on" function - if the phone's locked, it's locked for everything except emergency calls.

Am I missing something or is there a better app out there to help with this?

By the way, DS does accept he needs help with this - if left on all the time he'll play games or skip through YouTube videos for hours on end.

OP posts:
jaredh159 · 03/07/2023 19:55

what type of device does he have? my experience is that apple/iOS devices are far more capable of being tightly controlled by parents, although it requires a bit of work and diligence. the built-in screentime features allow a really strict set of controls if you know how to use them. they're so much better than 3rd-party solutions on Android that I've frequently suggested parents by apple products just for that reason. used/refurbs are not that expensive - we just bought a refurb iPhone SE for $150.

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