What's changed in Parental Controls: Everything you need to know!

Playing games with kids
Playing games with kids

Apple has made some changes to how you set up and use Parental Controls, including remote managing, activity reports, and scheduled downtime. Here's what's new in Parental Controls coming in iOS 12.

Viewing your kids' device usage remotely

With new updates in iOS 12, you'll be able to set up Parental Controls through Family sharing so you can manage your child's device usage remotely. You can set allowances for screentime and even set up categories and specific apps. So, you can restrict little Kevin's gaming between 5:00 and 7:00 PM, but allow him to use the education apps he needs for his homework!

Get an overview activity report

Check in with your kids' device usage on a daily, weekly, monthly basis by running an activity report. You can see how much time your child has been using their device, see which apps they're using, and when they've been using it. You can also see how often your little one picks up their phone and how many notifications they receive.

Screen Time

Screen Time is partly to help you better understand your device usage, but it's also where you will program things like app restrictions and downtime and get a usage report for your munchkins' activities.

You'll still be able to blacklist and whitelist content, keep an eye on the kids with location tracking, and all the other great parental control features, but now it's combined with the Screen Time feature in iOS 12.

Screen Time: Everything you need to know!

Lory Gil

Lory is a renaissance woman, writing news, reviews, and how-to guides for iMore. She also fancies herself a bit of a rock star in her town and spends too much time reading comic books.  If she's not typing away at her keyboard, you can probably find her at Disneyland or watching Star Wars (or both).