Here’s one issue that I came across a while back and have heard recent questions like below from parents struggling with the same.
“My child is downloading apps on their iPhone or iPad that I have NOT approved? How’s that even possible?”
And, for some parents who may have already done their investigative work, you’ve probably noticed that these apps in question are all apps that have been downloaded by you or others within your family sharing plan – either an older child in the home or even an adult/parent. . .
Here’s why… whether it’s a miss or a “feature”, Apple allows anyone on a family sharing plan to download apps from the purchased area of the app store without requiring the normal Ask to Buy function. This makes sense if it’s truly a purchase, but doesn’t help when we’re using this as a parental control for controlling what apps get installed on a child’s device – full stop.
This just means that a child can download any app that either a parent or other sibling in the home has already downloaded if their on the same family sharing plan… (unless it meets some other restrictions set within screen time such as age rating – we’ll talk about this more in a moment)
As an example:
Let’s say (hypothetically) you’re a parent and you decide to download and test a more controversial app e.g. Snapchat on your own phone due to the increased popularity and pure number of asks (daily) by your teens…
But, soon thereafter, you come to the realization that it’s not going to fly in your home for teens under a specific age. You then proceed to communicate the poorly received news to your kiddos. <sigh>
And then… you coincidently begin to notice that your child’s Screen Time reports show usage related to an app called Snapchat…
Well, you could say that this is where we just trust but verify by using reports like Screen Time, but that could get difficult to do for extended periods of time with more than 1 child in the home — especially when the number of downloaded apps increases in volume over time…
Here are 2 ways to help solve this one:
- Hide apps from being downloaded from your purchased history
On your iPhone, open the App Store app, click on your profile picture at the top right, and then Purchased. There you will see “My Purchased” as well as other family member purchases. Select My Purchased and Swipe left to HIDE any apps from view of family members. This will prevent others from downloading outside of the normal “ask to buy” request process.
- Ensure your parental controls are set to only allow your kids to access age-appropriate apps. This doesn’t always solve the problem – for example – Snapchat is rated for age 12, but has been known for having mature content in the news/discovery section…
- On your iPhone, go to Settings > Screen Time > [child name] > Content & Privacy Restrictions > Content Restrictions > Apps
- From there, select the age rating appropriate for your child’s age
Once you’ve done this, they will no longer be able to download any app that exceeds their selected age rating allowance. This helps a ton for more mature apps and younger children.
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MARK SCALIA 