Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
  • Limiting sons iPhone screen time
  • mudmuncher
    Full Member

    My 12yr old spends far too much time watching rubbish on tiktok & YouTube so I’ve setup Apple screen time. Unfortunately it never seems to work. It comes up with a message saying he has used his time but continues to work anyway. I don’t know if he’s found a way to crack it or if it’s just a rubbish application.

    Anyone have the same issue or have any ideas on how to get it to work. Failing that are there any 3rd party apps that will do the same job that anyone has used?

    susepic
    Full Member

    https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/nokia-3310?sku=A00028120

    Sorry, but it’s a challenge that I haven’t been able to work out a solution to. Mine’s 15

    andrewh
    Free Member

    Turn the WiFi off?
    .
    This is likely to be more effective if he pays his own telephone bill or you live in an area with a rubbish signal

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    dander
    Full Member

    OP – bet you never watch shite on your phone. Don’t be too hard on him!

    funkmasterp
    Full Member

    Take it off him once you’ve been notified of the limit being reached.

    oceanskipper
    Full Member

    You need to add him as a family member and then you need to set it to “Block” when the limit is reached for both Screentime and App Limits. Once you do that if he wants more time he will get the option to extend for 1 minute or send a request to you to allow more time. The request will appear on your phone.

    Unless he knows the PIN in which case all bets are off…

    mudmuncher
    Full Member

    You need to add him as a family member and then you need to set it to “Block” when the limit is reached for both Screentime and App Limits. Once you do that if he wants more time he will get the option to extend for 1 minute or send a request to you to allow more time. The request will appear on your phone.

    Unless he knows the PIN in which case all bets are off…

    That’s what I did, but it still doesn’t work. I’ve also changed the pin a few times, but it’s only 4 digits so maybe he just keeps guessing. If I was cynical I’d say Apple have made it a bit crap so kids can bypass it so they stay addicted to their phones.

    Take it off him once you’ve been notified of the limit being reached.

    That’s what I’ve been doing but I’d rather it was done automatically as he is always pissed off with me when I take it off him.

    OP – bet you never watch shite on your phone. Don’t be too hard on him!

    Yes, but not to the extent he does and not at all at his age.

    Turn the WiFi off?
    .
    This is likely to be more effective if he pays his own telephone bill or you live in an area with a rubbish signal

    Did that on the router but he just burns through his mobile data allowance instead that we pay for.

    oceanskipper
    Full Member

    Have you tested it on his phone yourself? Do any of the apps  lock? They should get a little egg timer icon on them when they are limited by screen time. Also have you configured both App Limits and Screentime settings and are you doing them from your phone? Also how is he accessing TikTok – via the app or via a browser? You can block specific websites too if you want to. It’s really quite good actually considering it’s built in. If you can’t make it work get in touch with Apple, they’ll help you. Also if you get a family data plan with someone like EE you will have a degree of control over how the data is used.

    sorry for the poor formatting, I’m on the mobile and it’s a pain to type on!

    EDIT If you configure something like OpenDNS on your router     you will get some filtering on web content too so anything really awful will be blocked. TBH the stuff on YT and TikTok whilst utter garbage mostly isn’t actually that harmful IME.

    mudmuncher
    Full Member

    I’ve worked out why it wasn’t working…

    There is a menu “always allowed” and basically all his apps were ticked. Not sure if that is the default or if he’d managed to change that himself, anyhow I’ve removed the apps and it appears to work now. Parent 1, kid 0 (for the time being🤣). Hope that helps anyone else having the same issue.

Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

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