How to setup Parental Controls on your Android
More often than not, you’ll notice your Android smartphone or tablet finding it’s way into the hands of little hands and fingers. While that might not necessarily be a problem, it’s worth learning how you can set up parental controls on your device to prevent them from doing anything they shouldn’t.
If your Android device is running Android OS version 4.2 or higher, then you can easily and quickly switch between user accounts with minimal effort. You can also set up specific accounts to restrict access to apps, games and other features which might not be entirely appropriate for your kids. Keep reading below to discover exactly how to add parental controls to your device.
- Firstly, open your apps list and tap the ‘Settings’ icon.
- Scroll down the page until you find the term ‘Users’.
- Choose the option to create a new profile by tapping the small icon of a person in the top-right hand corner of the screen. As you want this to be for children to use, you’ll want to select ‘Restricted Profile’.
- You might be asked to set up a PIN or passcode for your personal user account. It’s necessary to prevent anyone from simply switching back to your account to bypass the parental controls.
- The next screen is where you can decide what apps or games can be accessed from the account. Scroll through the list of all the apps installed and toggle on which apps you are comfortable with your kids accessing.
- Now simply lock your device. When you go to unlock it you can choose which account to log in as from tapping the icons in the top-right hand corner of the screen. If you tap your child’s profile then all of the apps you want to hide, will be.
Now that you’ve hidden apps and games from your kids, you might want to learn how to prevent them from making any purchases from within the games they are allowed to play.
- Open up the PlayStore and touch the menu button. This button looks like three lines.
- Tap on ‘Settings’
- Locate the option for ‘User Controls’ and select ‘require authentication for purchases’. You can set up a password here to prevent access for purchases.
- You can set how often you want to be prompted for the password, either every single time you want to download an app or game or allow access for 30 minutes after you’ve entered the password.
So there you have it, a simple but effective way to add parental control settings to your device. You can even block the camera app so you don’t end up with 300 photos of random things.
