I think something is in the water because my post yesterday was about disabling the automatic setting within Gmail that opens links in a browser *inside Gmail*, which I hate. I've decided 2025 is my year of "improve the technology in my life".
I didn't know the granular level of extra time and control, that's awesome, but Google family link is such an overlooked platform. I think people assume it's only if you are an android family, but that's not the case. Google family link is the way to provide control over a kid's YouTube account and viewing if you don't want to do YouTube kids (it's called a "Supervised" YouTube account and is good for tweens and teens), PLUS you can actually control the websites they're able to access in a chrome browser on ANY device, provided they've logged into chrome. You can also see and monitor (and lock) their Chromebook usage (assuming you own it and it's not a school-administered device).
I think that's right re: YouTube, YouTube Kids, etc. Google has so much control over the ecosystem, and I haven't really interfaced with it until this moment.
Oh my god. Yes. We have exactly two apple devices, my spouse's ipad and now our daughter's, and getting hers set up was MISERABLE. We didn't know anything about setting up kids accounts and it's beyond unintuitive. And then half the parental locks i put in place, I immediately had to undo because downloading games was a nightmare. But good luck finding those settings again. Overall it's better than the damn fire tablet we replaced but MAN.
Same here! We're an Android phone household, but the kids have ipads. I have to keep an elderly ipad around solely to approve their app install requests. The only other option is an extremely annoying 2FA experience that fundamentally assumes I have an apple device of my own.
And sometimes their app requests just stop showing up on my ipad for approval. But I've discovered a secret:
If you aren't getting kids' app approval requests on your adult Apple device, rename the adult's device. It doesn't matter what you rename it to, just the act of renaming somehow kickstarts the approvals connection and the requests will flow again. It's been this way on mine for years, I have to change the device name every few months.
I appreciate this article in comparing parental controls between apple/google. I look forward to the eventual parents guide to kids controls for whatever top platforms you go for. I feel like I did everything very deliberately and 'right' when creating an Xbox/MS account for my oldest, and it still bites me in the butt in weird ways I didn't expect when dealing with purchases (especially in Minecraft when we're dealing with trying to get Minecoins for her to be able to spend)
There are lots of reasons to criticize google, but it's nice to see some recognition for these services. The folks who work on these systems care passionately about kids and families and an enormous amount of thought and effort goes into them.
If you think Apple's bad, don't get me started on Microsoft...
Google has done a pretty good job with their parental controls, with one glaring oversight: It's impossible to convert a non-kid account to a kid account. We created my kids' accounts before Family Link started in 2017, with carefully crafted/chosen account names, and now we can't do any family controls with them.
BUDDY. I, like a lot of people, registered an email for my oldest when they were born, only to discover you can't do exactly what you're asking. It's truly ridiculous. I should write about that lol
so what did you do? Create a burner account for them to use until they're of age? What a world.
I've largely given up on Family Link, honestly. Aside from this issue, they have Google accounts through school and on school's chromebooks anyway. Those have their own settings that I can't control: Wide open youtube without time limits. So I could set up whatever limits I wanted, but they've got these other devices all day every day.
there's no Youtube limits that they've ever run into. Lots of websites are blocked, but Youtube gets used too much in the classroom now to be turned off.
I think something is in the water because my post yesterday was about disabling the automatic setting within Gmail that opens links in a browser *inside Gmail*, which I hate. I've decided 2025 is my year of "improve the technology in my life".
I didn't know the granular level of extra time and control, that's awesome, but Google family link is such an overlooked platform. I think people assume it's only if you are an android family, but that's not the case. Google family link is the way to provide control over a kid's YouTube account and viewing if you don't want to do YouTube kids (it's called a "Supervised" YouTube account and is good for tweens and teens), PLUS you can actually control the websites they're able to access in a chrome browser on ANY device, provided they've logged into chrome. You can also see and monitor (and lock) their Chromebook usage (assuming you own it and it's not a school-administered device).
I think that's right re: YouTube, YouTube Kids, etc. Google has so much control over the ecosystem, and I haven't really interfaced with it until this moment.
Setting up iPads with parental controls was my own personal Christmas hell. Especially when those are the only Apple devices we have in the home.
Ouch. Hey, please write in with your experience? I want to go deeper on this.
Oh my god. Yes. We have exactly two apple devices, my spouse's ipad and now our daughter's, and getting hers set up was MISERABLE. We didn't know anything about setting up kids accounts and it's beyond unintuitive. And then half the parental locks i put in place, I immediately had to undo because downloading games was a nightmare. But good luck finding those settings again. Overall it's better than the damn fire tablet we replaced but MAN.
Same here! We're an Android phone household, but the kids have ipads. I have to keep an elderly ipad around solely to approve their app install requests. The only other option is an extremely annoying 2FA experience that fundamentally assumes I have an apple device of my own.
And sometimes their app requests just stop showing up on my ipad for approval. But I've discovered a secret:
If you aren't getting kids' app approval requests on your adult Apple device, rename the adult's device. It doesn't matter what you rename it to, just the act of renaming somehow kickstarts the approvals connection and the requests will flow again. It's been this way on mine for years, I have to change the device name every few months.
I appreciate this article in comparing parental controls between apple/google. I look forward to the eventual parents guide to kids controls for whatever top platforms you go for. I feel like I did everything very deliberately and 'right' when creating an Xbox/MS account for my oldest, and it still bites me in the butt in weird ways I didn't expect when dealing with purchases (especially in Minecraft when we're dealing with trying to get Minecoins for her to be able to spend)
Yes, expect this to become a larger project going forward. Expect day one write-ups for, say, Switch 2. I plan to fill out every major platform.
There are lots of reasons to criticize google, but it's nice to see some recognition for these services. The folks who work on these systems care passionately about kids and families and an enormous amount of thought and effort goes into them.
If you think Apple's bad, don't get me started on Microsoft...
Google has done a pretty good job with their parental controls, with one glaring oversight: It's impossible to convert a non-kid account to a kid account. We created my kids' accounts before Family Link started in 2017, with carefully crafted/chosen account names, and now we can't do any family controls with them.
BUDDY. I, like a lot of people, registered an email for my oldest when they were born, only to discover you can't do exactly what you're asking. It's truly ridiculous. I should write about that lol
so what did you do? Create a burner account for them to use until they're of age? What a world.
I've largely given up on Family Link, honestly. Aside from this issue, they have Google accounts through school and on school's chromebooks anyway. Those have their own settings that I can't control: Wide open youtube without time limits. So I could set up whatever limits I wanted, but they've got these other devices all day every day.
The school doesn't have any filters for them?
Separately, re: accounts. I just set up a new account for the kids -- you know, their first/last name plus some numbers. It's goofy.
there's no Youtube limits that they've ever run into. Lots of websites are blocked, but Youtube gets used too much in the classroom now to be turned off.