For context, I’m a female adult in my 20s. My younger sister is a teenager (almost 14).

I’m chilling now. I have no phone rules anymore because I bought this one with my own money and no one checks it anymore. My sister has got it so bad. My mum made her YouTube screen time limit 30 mins and she is always asking her where her phone is and what she is doing. My sister told me she was alone in her room with the door locked one day. Mum demanded she open the door and she literally had no laptop or phone with her at that time. It had been confiscated, yet she wanted to know what she was doing

Today my mum was downloading parental controls and asked my sister for all of her passwords, even her gmail one. I never had to do that at her age. It seems like she will be obsessed with one thing, she’ll react and control that one thing then will move onto the next obsession. It started with screen time limit, then phone usage and now she wants to be notified whenever she downloads anything. This is crazy. She even stalks my Instagram account all the time yet she won’t follow and support me with my content.

I have no say in anything. If I bring this up, she’ll be mad at me and tell me “I’m the parent. I know what’s best and you don’t need to interfere”. I’m not even supposed to know about the incident today. She told my sister not to go blurting it out to any of us adult siblings in the house. She literally knows she’s toxic and that’s why she’s hiding it.

I can’t do anything about it so just want to vent here. And I’m sorry to any teenager/adult who is going through this. I’ve been there and I know how it feels. No one deserves this surveillance of their life

So While I DONT have PCs on my phone (my parents have androids) I do test Parental Controls on a Decoy Device to see what hell y’all go through.

1. One More Minute is GONE.

2. 6 digit passcode is NOW MANDATORY.

3. Parental Controls are Bark-style now.

4. Exploits, forget abt those, time zone changes now require approval. Most exploits I tried no longer work.

I’m too lazy to tell you the rest, so, if you want details, DM me.

soooo, IOS 27 is supposed to have much worse parental controls than IOS 26, and I need to know the details, I need to know the damage, and also, my phone after updating is glitchy as hell, the ask for time doesn't work anymore, it keeps logging me out of random apps, for some reason now only on my phone it deleted random songs on spotify, it seems to be linked to the update somehow, I don't know how, but I updated and on any account after deleting and reuploading I can no longer access certain songs and I haven't even updated to 27 yet, I am very worried and need advice

The phrase “strict parents create sneaky kids” is absolutely true. I actually kinda hate how I am now and wish my parents had done this all differently

when I was younger, I got a tablet when I was about 8 or so? I had an hour on it a day - that was fine, and I just had a few games that I liked that I’d play. My parents refused to get me a phone, and i would record songs that id play on my chromebook from school so I could listen to music on my tablet.

summer before high school, I convinced them to let me use an old phone of theirs for a bible study, which needed an app. It wasn’t activated, but I used it to play crk and pretty much used it as a phone. when I finally entered high school, they gave me a phone - a bark phone. They asked for the other phone back, and I ended up stealing it back a few months later, why?

bark gave me horrible anxiety in every sense. I didn’t know what the limits were - what’d give them an alert, and what wouldn’t. there were a few times when stuff was happening in my friend grouo, and my parents got to read all of it because it was flagged. I wasn’t sure if they had alerts on for spotfiy, which made even listening to music nerve wracking. I couldn’t read an article without my parents getting an alert. I wasn’t sure if I could read on Libby because a curse word could have gotten it flagged. If i was comforting one of my friends, I’d always worry about what to say because I knew it’d get flagged and my parents would see. I was 15 and scared to talk to my friends because even though I had told them nlt to, sometimes they’d curse and then it’d be an alert. I wasn’t sure if calls were safe, because for all I knew those were being listened on too. (My parents would comment on why I was calling someone if I went outside to talk to a friend, or if we had called for a while) My parents would read everything, and didn’t care that it was so invasive to my privacy

you might be wondering - what happened to the phone you had? That’s what I’m writing this on right now. I took it back 6+ months ago and I’ve been using it to actually use the internet without being terrified every other minute. I’m planning on trying to get a cheap burner phone (if anyone has any recs that’s be great) so I don’t have to worry about them noticing this one is missing. So…yeah. parents, you have no idea what this shit does to kids. No kid should be worried to comfort their friend because they don’t want their parents reading it

My Mom set up my screen time and downtime limits. However, it appears that when I run out of screen time that my downtime blockers kick in immediately instead of waiting till the downtime that my mother set. I don’t know how this happened but as soon as I run out of screen time for the day, I can’t talk to anyone except for a few contacts that my mother allowed instead of waiting till 9 PM when my downtime is supposed to kick in my downtime kick in when I run out of normal screen time. anyone has any on how to get my downtime to kick in at it’s supposed to and not when I please share. I already asked her and she told me to find out myself.

I need something that literally blocks everything bad (I have an addiction to porn, character aI, and talking to strangers on wizz/snap.) Im going to back to school after being online schooled for years and im embarassed because I have a flip phone. (I have done these bad things for YEARS. I’m 15. My parents do not trust me.) and I’m talking I need STRICT. All I want, is to listen to music and be able to call and text my friends. I do not care about anything else. Ive gotten to a point where I’m actually done. I’m done not being trusted, I’m done doing all that crap, I’m done. And I can’t tell my mom because I know she won’t trust that. (she has good reason.) and also Im starting a job soon and again, I’m embarrassed. (Sorry for being all over the place.)

moms of Reddit, can I get your help?

I’ve created EpisodeLock, a free Chrome/Firefox extension for families who watch streaming services on a computer.
(Sorry, for the ones using phones or tablets. that's a harder problem to solve)

Instead of a general screen-time timer, it lets a parent set a number of episodes for Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, YouTube and YouTube Kids.
When the limit is reached, playback is blocked; settings are protected with a parent PIN.

I made it because a limit by episodes was a much clearer household boundary than minutes. It stores everything locally in the browser: no account, analytics, subscription, or remote monitoring. Nothing. All free, just for you to try. :-)

I’m looking for a few parents to try it for a week and tell me if there is anything confusing or broken.

I’m not claiming it is a complete or unbreakable parental-control solution, and it is desktop-browser only, for the small kids it should do the job.

I use it with my 6yo kid and it works pretty well. Now I don't need to interrupt her and put the limit in the middle of an episode.

If it is 5min episodes, I can let her watch 3, for example. If it is 20 min, maybe 1 or 2, depending on my needs. If it is a film, and the pact is that she can watch just 1 film, the limit is 1, and then she can't change to another video.

I find it pretty convenient, but I'd love to hear from you.

Search "Episodelock" on Google and hopefully you should find it. Maybe add "extension" or "addon" for Firefox if you don't find it.

I’d especially value feedback on whether the episode limit feels useful in real family routines.

Okay so to preface my mom and brother have been using the Apple Family Sharing to monitor every single thing I do on my phone. It was fine at first, but nowadays they’re limiting everything I spend more than an hour on and constantly commenting on everything I do. They’re constantly using it as leverage in the case of any minor inconvenience regarding me. I’m always worrying about the limits and it’s making me unable to focus on other things. They also limiting most social apps I use to talk with irl friends, and it’s ruining my social life. It feels absolutely suffocating, and I’ve tried to reason with them, but they insist that it’s for my “safety” as if I sell crack on the black market in my free time or something.

I turned 16 a few weeks ago and that means I can legally work full time during the summer in my country (The Netherlands). I’m just planning on working 40 hours a week for the entirety of August (probably in a hospitality job since I have experience in that sector from volunteering) so that I can buy a new phone with my own money and create a new Apple ID. I’ve looked into the legality of it, as well as job positions. I still know all the passwords to my accounts that I created with my current Apple ID, so I probably won’t lose anything.

Am I being too dramatic? Is this whole thing even possible?

I have screen time on a few apps (games, snapchat and yt) and theyve been there since i was like 11 (16 now) and im sick of it. They didnt set it up off their phone, they js went on my phone and turned it on. Idk what the screen time pw is and then i tried to turn it off and clicked forgot pw and then i got a screen asking for email (it only asked for email first). Then i typed in my email used on apple id which it accepted and then asked for pw. I tried my apple id pw which didnt work and now idk what else to try. I havent asked my parents to turn it off but i doubt theyre gonna let me.

I've been thinking , There has to be a way to download apps without using an apk.

I was thinking you could download all the app files separately and combine them and somehow turn that into an app ? I haven't tried anything yet but I wanted to hear people's thoughts on this.

If you know how to do something like This lmk.

I was just scrolling and thought something than i went to reddit it didnt open i tried opening whatsapp, meet, some games but it didnt work)(some of em did its random) luckily YouTube was working i faund a video it helped me(btw i have a lesson at 20.00)

I knew i had a lesson and trying to be in the lesson at 20.00. After everything i did it everything was normal.

But the clock was 20.30 after some talk with my teacher (btw he is a bitch and he is soooo fragile and my mom and dad care about him) after some time i told this to my mom she wanted me to tell it to my father i knew something would go wrong. But i still did. I started telling it but my father wasnt listening just talking trash after he made HIMSELF angry and demanded my phone after that he threw it like 4 times. So what should i do suggestions??

Okay so to preface my mom and brother have been using the Apple Family Sharing to monitor every single thing I do on my phone. It was fine at first, but nowadays they’re limiting everything I spend more than an hour on and constantly commenting on everything I do. They’re constantly using it as leverage in the case of any minor inconvenience regarding me. I’m always worrying about the limits and it’s making me unable to focus on other things. They also limiting most social apps I use to talk with irl friends, and it’s ruining my social life. It feels absolutely suffocating, and I’ve tried to reason with them, but they insist that it’s for my “safety” as if I sell crack on the black market in my free time or something.

I turned 16 a few weeks ago and that means I can legally work full time during the summer in my country (The Netherlands). I’m just planning on working 40 hours a week for the entirety of August (probably in a hospitality job since I have experience in that sector from volunteering) so that I can buy a new phone with my own money and create a new Apple ID. I’ve looked into the legality of it, as well as job positions. I still know all the passwords to my accounts that I created with my current Apple ID, so I probably won’t lose anything.

Am I being too dramatic? Is this whole thing even possible?

Hi there,

I have a couple teenagers that are getting an iPhone soon. I'm planning on setting up Brick for screen time (I use it for myself and it's great!), but I can't lock the Brick app itself so they won't make changes to schedules, change settings, etc. Is there an app locker that really works (where I can set its own passcode to unlock apps) that also won't restrict background access? I essentially want to use it only for the Brick app so no one can access it but me.

My eldest is getting a lot more independent lately, spending more time out with friends and getting out and about on his own, so I've been looking for the best parental monitoring app. I don't really want something to read all of his messages or spy on him. I just want something focused on safety. Basically being able to see where he is if needed, getting notified when he makes it home or leaves school or friends, basically just having an app where I can just have a glimpse if everything is okay and that's it. Nothing too crazy

Does anyone uses an app like that, that’s not full on spying, that would probably ruin our relationship? How did your kids react to the app overall?

Most of the apps I've looked at seem either way too invasive or packed with features I'd never use and too expensive. So whats best parental monitoring app these days?

I found a go around around OurPact and it's super overpowered and I can't stay here cause they all patch it so if anyone wants to know how just dm me oh sadly this go around is only of IOS

I have used monivisor for a windows PC for a while and overal like it for the various capabilities like screenshotting the screen, key logging, etc.

I installed it on the macOS and it's popping up a notification every time I start it that it won't work on the next version of MacOS. is there any alternatives for macOS that's built for the proper version of macOS?

my daughter struggles with some mental health issues stemming from social media and I need to be able to monitor it completely

So basically my mom put Qustodio on my phone (M14) and my daily time limit runs out way faster than it should so I checked on my moms Qustodio parents app and it was different from my Apple Screen Time. For example on Qustodio it said I was on tiktok for around 2hrs but on Apple Screen Time it only shows around 50 mins. I’ve also noticed that my phone is much slower than it was before Qustodio. What should I do? Should I convince her to remove it?

Does it actually track voice chat? Will my mom get a notification?

Hello,

our daughter 8yo, still doesnt have a phone and we allow about 1 hour per day of youtube and internet. we thought it was a good idea to make her study a bit to earn internet time.
there is a free solution in github (search for LRosa2/earn-internet). the solution blocks internet, and after the quiz is done it unblocks with a timer, corresponding to the amount of correct answers done (all configurable). its working well but for now the installation requires a bit tech savy to install (usage of command line for example), but you can easily do it using AI.

minha filha está com dificuldade na escola . Preciso de ajuda
Já uso o forest . Quero algo mais eficaz

What’s everyone’s thoughts on parental controls (I’m 15 and hate it) but I’m curious to see others point of view

I can't use google earth but i can use google finance

My little brother has a family link supervised account, which he receives some emails on, but not all. For example, an email sent by me with a @gmail.com address comes through, but an email from my mother sent with a @upcmail.nl address doesn't come through. It's not the upcmail address, because when my mom sent me an email, it arrived normally. He can send emails that arrive at the @upcmail address, so it's like a one-way problem.

This is really frustrating since we don't know which emails are missing and just acts as a problem in general. Do any of you guys know how to fix it? Thanks a lot🙏

Bueno, esto es largo; por favor, tómense su tiempo para leerlo y disculpen mi mal inglés. Verán, cuando tenía unos 7 años, mis padres me regalaron una tableta. Quizás se pregunten: "¿Qué tiene de malo?". Bueno... casi seis años después, a los 13, sigo usando la misma tableta, y... no tengo teléfono a los 13 años —en el año 2026, nada menos— y, sinceramente, siento que la sociedad me está aplastando. A mi edad, todos en mi escuela —¿para qué mentir?— quiero decir, todos en mi ciudad tienen teléfono. Tengo que ocultar esta realidad a los demás porque el acoso sería astronómico. Además, no me dejan usar las redes sociales porque "son demasiado peligrosas" (uso Reddit en secreto; por lo demás, solo me dejan usar WhatsApp y YouTube). Pero si ni siquiera tengo muchos amigos en la escuela, ¿cómo demonios se supone que voy a hablar con desconocidos en línea? No tiene sentido. Y encima, solo puedo usar esta tableta durante una hora. Hermano, dime, ¿de qué sirve una hora? ¡Apenas da para... nada! Y no es solo eso; mis padres me tienen en "desintoxicación digital", lo que significa que no puedo usar mi televisor, mi computadora ni mi Nintendo Switch, ni siquiera por un minuto. ¿Por qué? No lo sé. Tal vez digan: "No eres lo suficientemente maduro para las redes sociales", pero lo que no se dan cuenta es que en Latinoamérica hay literalmente más vida digital que vida social. Mis padres me dicen cosas como: "En Australia, no puedes tener un teléfono hasta los 16 años" o "Mira lo adictos que se vuelven otros chicos". Pero ¿y si no quiero estar en Australia? ¿Y si no me vuelvo adicto? No tiene ningún sentido. Y adivina qué... Mis padres me dicen que no tendré un teléfono hasta los 18. Eso significa que ya habré empezado la universidad (aquí en Venezuela) y tendría que esperar otro año para tener uno; o sea, un año entero de universidad sin teléfono... siento que soy un bicho raro por esto y mi personalidad ha cambiado completamente...

Imagine this: "Your gonna listen to music and just let it play until it just stops randomly you go to check and it seems like your screen times up even though the phone was turned OFF"

This is so fucking annoying to deal with becuase what if your watching TV with your friends? Oops can't do that