You get the ability to opt out of most Google parental controls at 13 but you can keep them turned on. When my first child turned 13 we had a frank conversation with them and basically said look we'll loosen a lot of the reins but we aren't comfortable with you having completely unrestricted access to your phone and so far we've been able to negotiate it. They're 15 and still haven't brought it back up and I imagine it'll happen at some point but, as always, if you have a decent relationship with your kid and can have a real conversation about it then you can navigate it.
Also Life360's free version really is very good because it allows your kids to see where you are, in addition to you being able to see where they are, and once you've got multiple kids going to multiple schools on different buses in multiple after-school activities and you have a different schedule from your spouse it's pretty dang handy to be able to see where everyone is.
Yeah. "Find My" is nice but much like my appreciation of Family Link, there is going to be a reason eventually, I think, to want a dedicated app that shows you exactly what you want to see and not a million other options. This is my general issue with Apple's approach to parental controls being buried in settings.
You get the ability to opt out of most Google parental controls at 13 but you can keep them turned on. When my first child turned 13 we had a frank conversation with them and basically said look we'll loosen a lot of the reins but we aren't comfortable with you having completely unrestricted access to your phone and so far we've been able to negotiate it. They're 15 and still haven't brought it back up and I imagine it'll happen at some point but, as always, if you have a decent relationship with your kid and can have a real conversation about it then you can navigate it.
OK, yeah, that makes sense to me. That feels like the normal negotiation as your child grows up.
Also Life360's free version really is very good because it allows your kids to see where you are, in addition to you being able to see where they are, and once you've got multiple kids going to multiple schools on different buses in multiple after-school activities and you have a different schedule from your spouse it's pretty dang handy to be able to see where everyone is.
Yeah. "Find My" is nice but much like my appreciation of Family Link, there is going to be a reason eventually, I think, to want a dedicated app that shows you exactly what you want to see and not a million other options. This is my general issue with Apple's approach to parental controls being buried in settings.