Parents
Parent's Guide to Making Instagram Safe for Teens
Parents can use a combination of built-in features on Instagram and third-party apps to monitor activity on Instagram.
Are you worried about who your teen is interacting with on Instagram? Or whether or not they are accessing inappropriate content? As a proactive parent, you should know how to ensure your child is using Instagram in a safe way. In this guide, we'll show you how to monitor Instagram so that your child's Instagram use is fully transparent. Additionally, you'll learn some parental control techniques for automatically hiding explicit content on Instagram.
Parents should consider ways to both disable certain features on Instagram and monitor their child's interactions while using the app. For the best results on iPhone, consider using screen monitoring to oversee your child's activity on Instagram.
For example, the LivingRoom for Families monitors private messages, friend requests, and other activities that might be a risk for your child. You can combine screen monitoring with account supervision for a comprehensive system, because account supervision allows parents to disable certain features on Instagram.
Why Parental Controls on Instagram can be difficult
Instagram has been scrutinized in the news due to the risks posed to teens, and as a sort of response, parents can use a feature called account supervision to set restrictions for their child's account as they use the app.
However, there are several notable reasons why account supervision may not be enough by itself.
Instagram might show Inappropriate Content to Teens even with restrictions correctly enabled
Your child can access a public feed of videos shared by users outside of their friend group. As a result, they might see inappropriate or suggestive videos, and while the chances of this can be reduced with Instagram's sensitive content controls, it's not a perfect solution.
Parents cannot view private message content with account supervision
Instagram allows parents to have some visibility into their teen's account and supervise their teen's Instagram account. While supervision helps parents spot strangers who have reached out to their children, Instagram does not allow parents to view the contents of any messages sent to or by their child.
For many parents, this just means that they need to change how they approach parental controls on Instagram. Instead of scanning messages, keep an eye out for accounts you don't recognize or consider a third-party app to monitor content on your teen's smartphone.
Multiple accounts can make monitoring difficult
It's easy for Instagram users to create new accounts using a username of their choosing.
This creates two major challenges for parents:
- It's difficult to know who your teen is interacting with since profiles may not match real identities
- Your teen could create an Instagram account that you don't know about without parental controls and oversight
Fortunately, if the device your teen browses Instagram on uses a screen accountability app, you won't have to worry about multiple accounts.
Monitor what your Teen Sees on Instagram
Parents can use Account Supervision on the Instagram app to view their Teen's contacts, although they can't see private messages. That's why it's important to consider additional ways to monitor your teen's activity on Instagram.
If your teen is using an iPhone, then the most effective way to monitor activity isn't by using account supervision alone; instead, you can use a screen monitoring app like LivingRoom for Families to capture screenshots that you (as the parent) can review later.
This is a much more comprehensive approach that can capture private messages, friend requests, and even attempts to set up alternate Instagram profiles and accounts while your teen is using their iPhone. Instagram can be completely blocked until your teen re-enables the screen recorder, which encourages your teen to use Instagram safely each time they open the app. They'll even see an icon like this on their iPhone while it's active:
View your Teen's contact list using account supervision on Instagram
If you (the parent) have your own Instagram account, then you can also monitor some basic features about your teen's Instagram account using account supervision. For example, you can see your Teen's contact list or even profiles of those who've recently messaged your teen.
See the next section for how to set up account supervision.
Setting up Account Supervision to disable features on Instagram
Instagram's version of parental controls is called Parental or Account Supervision. It limits how certain privacy restrictions can be changed on a Teen's account, and allows a parent to have more insight into who their Teen is contacting and being contacted by.
For the best results, here's how to set up parental supervision.
If you don't have an account, you'll need to create one. Otherwise, ensure that you're logged in with the correct on if you have multiple accounts.
Once your Teen is invited through Instagram, you'll be able to manage settings by going to your profile > More > Family Center. See the image below:
Sleep Mode lets you set hours during the day when your Teen is allowed to use Instagram. You can choose to either remind your Teen that time is up or block Instagram; we recommend setting this to "Block Teen from Instagram" instead of "Remind Teen to Close Instagram."
Account privacy is set to Private for Teen accounts by default, although this can be changed before Parental Supervision is enabled. Double-check this by going to their profile > More > Account Privacy (you can also view this from your Instagram account from Family Center).
Threads and Instagram's privacy settings could be different:
Set up additional supervision restrictions depending on where you live
Some States or regions have rules that Instagram must abide by that work in parents' favor. If you live in one of these regions, then you can add more controls to your Teen's account.
These features are only available if you live in one of these regions:
- Florida
- Connecticut
- Texas
- Puerto Rico
- Indonesia
- European Union
Frequently Asked Questions
Can comments be filtered on Instagram for my Teen?
Parents can use Instagram's parental supervision to review their Teen's Hidden Words setting and ensure comments containing certain keywords are hidden.