Keeping tabs on your child’s digital adventures can be challenging. Worries about how much screen time is safe and whether phones are killing the art of conversation are common. Limiting the amount of time they spend on their various gadgets, keeping track of what they’re doing, and preventing them from doing something they shouldn’t, are all tricky tasks. Thankfully, you can enlist some help and it doesn’t have to cost you anything.
Note: If you want to get free Apps from Goggle Play Store then Use Free Google Play codes and redeem it in your Google Account.
Google’s Family Link service, designed for parents of kids and teens, gives you control over nearly every aspect of your child’s digital experience. You can approve or block apps and games they want to download from the Google Play Store, see how much time your kids are spending on their favorite apps, remotely lock their devices, filter out some kinds of content, and even track their location. Let’s take a closer look at how to get started.
Setting up an account
Family Link is now available in at least 30 countries including the U.S. and the U.K., as well as Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden. You can get started on the Family Link website, but there are some prerequisites.
Before you can use Family Link, you will need:
- A Google Account for your child you can create this within the Family Link app if they don’t already have one.
- An Android device for your child that’s running Android 7.0 Nougat or later a few devices running Android 5.0 and 6.0 also work
- Your own Android device (running Android 4.4 KitKat or later) or iOS device (running iOS 9 or later)
- Your own Google Account
Family Link does not support Google accounts provided through work or school — you need a personal Google account, such as a Gmail account, to create an account for your child.
Note: While you can use the Family Link app on an iPhone as a parent to review your child’s activity on an Android device, it does not work if your child has an iPhone. If your child uses an iPhone, then you’ll want to look at Apple’s Screen Time and Family Sharing instead.
Download the Family Link app for Android or iOS on your personal device from the Google Play Store. In Android 10 Google has baked Family Link into the main settings, so you can go to Settings > Digital Wellbeing & parental controls and set it up there.
Tap the plus icon at the top right to add your child to the family group and then follow the onscreen instructions. You will have to verify that you give parental consent. You may be able to do this with your own Google account details or you may be asked to use a credit card. This will usually result in a temporary authorization and no fee will actually be charged, but sometimes in the U.S., there might be a 30-cent fee.
There is a limit of one Family Link account per device.
When you add a child’s profile Google will try to automatically select appropriate settings based on their age, but it’s worth dipping in and making sure that everything is set up the way you’d like.
How to filter content?
Once you have successfully added your child, you’ll want to tap on their profile in the Family Link app and tap Manage settings to decide what content they can access and what filters should be applied. There are sections here for Google Play, Google Chrome, Google Search, Google Assistant, Android apps, Location, Account Info, and More.
If you tap on Filters for Google Chrome, then you can choose to Try to block mature sites, which will attempt to block violence or sexually explicit content, or dig in and Only allow certain sites by creating a list of approved websites. This latter option also allows your child to request access to specific sites.
You should also go into Filters on Google Search, and toggle SafeSearch on. Once again, Google warns that it can’t guarantee everything you’d prefer your child didn’t see will be filtered out, but it seems to a pretty decent job.
How to manage your child’s app access?
One of Family Link’s best features is its ability to help you manage the apps your children download and use. When they attempt to download an app from the Play Store, you will get a pop-up notification containing the name of the app, the app’s publisher, the average star rating, and the number of downloads it has accumulated.
Importantly, you’ll also see a maturity rating that’s based on the Entertainment Software Rating Board’s (ESRB) content ratings. Apps like Google Maps get “G” ratings for example, while slightly more risque titles get “E” (for ages six or older) or “T” (for ages 13 and up). The maturity rating system may differ from country to country, for example, in the United Kingdom you will see Pan European Game Information (PEGI) ratings instead. Armed with both the app information as well as the maturity rating, you can decide whether to approve or deny the installation.
You can change the approval process and rules and control what your child can browse in the Google Play Store via the Family Link app in their profile by tapping Manage settings > Controls on Google Play.
Approving app downloads is not the limit of Family Link’s capabilities, however. Once an app is installed on your child’s device, you can control its permissions. You can deny the Facebook app access to the device’s camera and contacts, for example, or prevent a game from connecting to the internet. To do this go to Manage settings > Android apps and tap on an app, then tap Permissions. If you change your mind about an app and want to allow or block it, then go to Manage settings > Android apps tap on the app in question and toggle Allow app on or off.