Family Safety: Start Here

Start with the person in front of you. A five-year-old, a fifteen-year-old and a grandparent don’t need the same settings on the same day. Pick a door below: your child’s age, the problem you’re dealing with, or the app or device they use. Each link goes to a guide that names the real setting and the date it was checked. Hub updated October 29, 2026.

If you are setting up a child’s phone

Do these before you hand the phone over. Tell the child what you turned on. A surprise lock causes a fight, and a second phone.

1. Handing down an old phone? Reset it first so it doesn’t carry your accounts, messages and payment cards.
2. iPhone Screen Time, or Google Family Link if the phone is Android. Family Link cannot supervise an iPhone.
3. YouTube Kids or a supervised YouTube account. Restricted Mode is not the same thing.
4. The app or game they already use, from the list above.
5. Location sharing: who can see the dot, and how each person turns it off.
6. Shared photos: leave the public website and the open link off.
7. School apps: ask before a form gets a Social Security number.
8. A free credit freeze if the child is under 16.

If you are helping an older adult

Don’t turn a parent’s phone into a child’s phone. The useful jobs are fewer scam calls, a rule for gift cards, and a password they can still open after you leave.

1. Stop scam calls on a parent’s phone. Silence is not the same setting on Android as on iPhone.
2. Gift cards are only for gifts. Agree on the callback before anyone is scared.
3. Payment apps are like cash. A real bank never asks them to move money to a “safe account.”
4. A pop-up with a phone number is a scam. Close it. Don’t call the number.
5. A password manager for email and the bank, plus a second lock. A passkey on their email is even simpler. Show them how to open it the same day.
6. Location sharing only with the people they named, and show the off switch.
7. A digital legacy plan: Apple Legacy Contact or Google Inactive Account Manager, so the family photos aren’t lost.

For more, see Scams and Fraud and the Scam A to Z.

If you are a teen

You can make most of these stricter yourself. A parent link, where it exists, cannot be loosened by you, and you can usually remove the link. Read that before you accept it.

• Keep the account private. Instagram’s teen settings and TikTok’s private-account switch are the two to check first.
• Don’t read a gift-card PIN, a login code, or a password to someone who called or texted. Hang up and tell an adult in the house.
• A shared album link can be forwarded. Don’t put a friend’s face on a link you don’t control.
• If anyone threatens to share a private image, you are not in trouble for telling someone. See Sextortion for how to get images removed.
• At 16 or 17, the FTC says you may be able to place or remove your own credit freeze. Ask before you apply for a card or a loan if a parent froze it earlier.

One week, not one afternoon

Pick three items. Do those. The rest can wait until next weekend. A finished Screen Time passcode beats a half-finished tour of every app.

• Day one: the phone lock, Screen Time or Family Link, and the passphrase for a password manager.
• Day two: the one app or game the child uses most, and the gift-card rule said out loud.
• Day three: location or photos, whichever is already shared. Turn off the public link.

Latest family guides

Every family guide is in Family Safety. Company policy reviews are in Privacy Policies Watch, and the Privacy Policy Scorecard compares them side by side.