How to Monitor a Kids iPhone

Tech Lockdown Team

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Updated July 1, 2025

If you're a parent who's trying to set up parental controls on your child's iPhone, you might be wondering how to monitor your child's activity. Ensuring that your child isn't accessing unwanted content is a very important part of setting up a full parental control system.

This problem can get even more complicated depending on how exactly you've decided to implement parental controls. This guide explains, from start to finish, how parents can monitor their child's iPhone and view:

1. Web and Search activity from the Safari app
2. App usage and screen time
3. Location

Instead of paying for a parental control app from the App Store, it's possible to use Apple Family Sharing if both you and your child have iPhones. Apple Family Sharing is a built-in feature on most Apple devices, including iPhones, iPads, and even Mac computers.

What Kind of Activity Does Apple Family Collect?

Since Apple as a company has taken a strict stance on its user's privacy, Family Sharing does not record everything your child does. Instead, it gives you, the parent, a summary of some of the more important kinds of activity:

1. Your child's app usage and screen time
2. New app downloads and in-app purchases
3. Websites visited in the Safari browser
4. App notifications

Parents will see a summary like this for their child's activity for each day:

Website activity will also be listed in the same view. Here's another day that includes more website activity:

Unfortunately for parents, Apple does not allow you to view detailed information about your child's activity, like

1. Specific pages browsed on a website; for example, parents can see the time their child has spent on Google, but won't see their child's search activity
2. Specific content viewed by their child, like YouTube videos, posts viewed, or other social media activity

However, instead of providing detailed information, Apple does allow parents to set a wide range of restrictions for websites or apps.

Opening each app will provide a summary like this:

Parents can also view some basic information about websites visited by their children:

Set Up Apple Family To Monitor Your Child's iPhone Activity

This does require some coordination between you and your child, but depending on how you set up your child's Apple account, a parent can enable Managed Screen Time for their child.

Prerequisites

Here's what you'll need to start:

1. Both you and your child need to use separate Apple accounts; parents can set up accounts for their children if their child is below 13 years old
2. You and your child need to have separate iPhones; there is an exception if you and your child share a Mac computer, but you'll both need separate logins

If you're a parent, your Apple account can become a Family Organizer, which means you're in charge of your child's Apple account. To be a Family Organizer:

• Make sure that the age on your own Apple account is older than 18 years old
• You can't be a member of another Family Group

Set up your Apple Family Group

On your own iPhone, here is what you'll need to do to set up your Family Group:

Next, you'll need to set up your child's account.

Invite or Create Child or Teen Apple accounts

As a parent, there are two main ways to add your child to your Family Group:

1. If your child already has an Apple account, you can invite them from the Settings app
2. If your child does not have an Apple account, you can create one for them

Depending on the birthday set on an Apple account, it will be treated as either a child, teen, or normal Apple account. If you want the most control over your child's account, it needs to be set up as a child Apple account.

Child Apple accounts are any Apple account whose user is below 13 years old. This kind of Apple account can only be created by a Family Organizer, and is ideal for a few main reasons:

1. A Child account must always be a part of an Apple Family, and cannot leave
2. A Child account can have more restrictions enabled by parents

If your child already has an Apple account, it's possible that the age for the user is between 13 and 17 years old, which makes it a Teen account. Parents can still manage a Teen account's Screen Time settings and can see the same kind of activity, but a Teen account can leave a Family Group without requiring the approval of the Family Organizer.

It is possible to change the age for an Apple account , but this can't be done through Apple Family.

Set Up Managed Screen Time for Your Child

After your child has been added to your Apple Family Group, you can now set up Managed Screen Time. This is necessary to view your child's activity or set restrictions for them.

How does Managed Screen Time Work?

Managed Screen Time allows you, the parent, to view Screen Time activity on your child's account. You can also enable App Limits and set a Downtime for your child.

As a parent, you'll be asked to set a Screen Time PIN for your child. You can then use this PIN to make changes to your child's account, either by: 

1. Using your own iPhone
2. Borrowing your child's iPhone

In either case, the PIN you've set up as a parent will be the same.

If you created your child's account as the Family Organizer...

This should be enabled by default, but you can confirm this by following these instructions:

If Managed Screen Time is not enabled...

Tips and Tricks with Apple Family

Here are some of the most common restrictions parents can enable for their children.

Block specific Websites in Safari

Note that this only works if your child is using the Safari browser. We recommend blocking alternative browsers, if possible (we have some instructions later in this guide).

You should see two empty lists: Always Allow and Never Allow

You can remove entries later by holding an item and swiping left.

Allow only approved websites in Safari

There are some cases where you'd like to block all but a limited number of websites for your child.

You can remove entries later by holding an item and swiping left.

Block alternative web browsers

Since a website activity is only recorded if your child is using Safari, it's important to block alternative browsers.

This will prevent your child from "purchasing" new browsers. Purchasing is a bit weird on the App Store, since it's required even if the app is free. If you enable Ask to Buy, you child needs your approval to purchase any app, including free ones like other web browsers.

If your child brought their own Apple account to your Family Group, it's possible they have already purchased a popular web browser, like Google Chrome. In this case, setting up Ask To Buy won't work since your child can redownload the app without parental approval.

If this is the case, here's what you can do:

You can use almost all alternative browser apps by limiting the age range of apps to 12+, since most browsing apps (except for Safari) have an age rating of 17+.

You could add an App Limit for a very low time limit instead. The lowest time limit you can set is 1 minute.

Manage your Child's Contacts

To view your child's Contacts:

This requires your child to enter the Screen Time PIN to add, remove, or edit Contact entries.

Set up a Downtime for your child

A Downtime will block most apps and notifications for your child at a set time each day.

You may also want to ensure certain apps or Contacts are not blocked when Downtime is enabled for your child. For example, you might want to ensure that your child can send you a text message at any time of the day.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can my child leave our Family Group?

This depends on the birthdate set on your child's account. If your child's Apple account thinks your child is below 13 years old, then your child cannot leave the Family Group until they age naturally.

This also means that they can't change their birthdate, which can be changed on teen or normal Apple accounts.

What activity can parents view about their child's app usage?

Parents can only see the total amount of time their child has spent on an app. 

What's the difference between website and app activity?

Screen Time combines all Safari web browsing and app activity into one view.

Some platforms, such as YouTube, offer both a website and an app. In this case, the screen time activity you see as a parent is a combined total for both the website viewed in Safari and the app version of the platform.

Can parents see text messages or phone call activity?

No, although they can see or add Contacts for their child.