Android parental controls are built in two layers. The lower one is Google Family Link, which hangs off your child's Google account: that's where you set time limits, approve downloads, filter content and see the device's location. Google doesn't publish any fee for using it, so there's no documented charge. The upper one is the manufacturer's layer, which changes the names of the Settings menus and the order of the steps, and for that part there's a guide per brand. It holds the same for Android phones and for Android tablets.
This is the trunk guide: what holds true on any Android, whatever the brand, and on a tablet too. Every path comes from Google's documentation and states the version when Google states it; when Google doesn't state it, this guide says so instead of inventing a number. The paths that go through Settings are named by the manufacturer, not by Google, and there we tell you and point you to your brand's guide. And it also says, from the same source, what supervision does not do.
Android parental controls have two layers. The lower one is Family Link, the same on every phone and on every tablet because it doesn't live on the device but in your child's Google account. The upper one is the manufacturer's —One UI on Samsung, HyperOS or MIUI on Xiaomi, My UX on Motorola—, and it's the one that changes the names of the Settings menus and the order of the steps. Google doesn't publish equivalences per layer: its help goes no further than warning that some of these steps may vary depending on your device. That's why what follows here is only the generic part. Whatever depends on your brand lives in the three guides at the end of this page: the Samsung Galaxy one, the Xiaomi one and the Motorola one. If your phone is one of those, read this one first and that one after: here is the mechanism, there is the way in through the manufacturer's layer and what that layer breaks or covers up. On price, precisely: Google doesn't publish any fee for Family Link. Its requirements page only demands that you have a Google account, and it clarifies that that account is created at no cost. There's no documented charge, which isn't the same as a promise of free use: that promise would have to come from Google. And one clarification almost no guide makes: everything that follows applies the same way to an Android tablet. Google talks about an «Android device» throughout its help, and when it explains daily limits it specifies that they «apply to each Android device or Chromebook your child uses». If there's a phone and a tablet at home, that's two budgets, not one.
Almost every parental control guide starts out assuming your child already has an account. If they don't, that's the real step one, and Google documents two different routes: creating a Google Account for them from the Family Link app, which is what's intended for a child under 13 —or of whatever age your country sets—, or adding supervision to an account they already have. The difference matters because of consent. For the second route Google is explicit: «Your child will have to give you their consent when you set up supervision on their account». For the first, when you create the account yourself from scratch, Google doesn't document any equivalent step on your child's screen. We're not claiming that step doesn't exist: we're claiming it isn't documented, which is the only thing we can stand behind. The rest doesn't depend on Google: supervision that has been talked through holds up far better than supervision that gets discovered, and for that conversation there's the guide on how to talk to your child about parental controls. The requirements run on both sides, and yours is wider than people tend to think. On your child's side, Google asks for «An Android device (6.0 or later), a Chromebook (with ChromeOS 71 or later), or a compatible Fitbit device». On yours: «An Android device (6.0 or above), an iPhone or iPad (iOS 16 or above) or a Chromebook». You don't need to have Android yourself. Google gives two other figures on different pages —Android 5.0 on the one about which devices can be supervised, and Android 7.0 as a recommendation in its FAQ—, so with an old device it's worth looking at all three before counting on anything. On an iPhone, an iPad or a computer that isn't a Chromebook your child's account works, but «most Family Link supervision tools» don't. If the account already exists, the path starts on your child's phone: Settings > Google > All services > under «Kids & family», Parental controls > Get started > tap the name of the account you want to supervise. That first menu lives in the device's Settings, that is, in the manufacturer's layer: Google documents the path for Android and warns on that same page that some steps may vary depending on the device. If the labels on your phone don't match, your brand's guide is the one that applies. Stopping supervision from your child's phone requires Android 7.0 or later and is done under Settings > Google > Parental controls > Stop supervision, verifying your identity; until they're 18 they need your approval. When they turn 13 —«or the age set in your country», the formula Google always uses— Google writes to your child, that email reaches you as well, and their account can become a supervised teen account. And if some day you dismantle it all, the order matters: Google warns that deleting the account before removing it from the device can lock the phone and force a factory reset.
A note on vocabulary before the path: Google calls this section «Tiempo de uso» in its Latin American help and «Tiempo de pantalla» in the Spanish one —Screen time in English—. It's the same menu. The daily limit is set from the Family Link app, on your phone: top left, select your child > Screen time > Screen time limits > Daily limit, and under Weekly schedule the maximum for each day. For a specific app: Screen time > Screen time limits > App limits > pick the app > Allowed or Blocked toggle > Done. Google documents both things for devices with Android 7 and later versions. These paths live inside the Family Link app and not in Settings, so they're the same on every phone, whatever the brand. Two sentences from that same page head off almost every disappointment. «Daily limits apply to each Android device or Chromebook your child uses»: it's a budget per device, not per child, so two hours on the phone and two on the tablet are four. And «Limits can't be applied to system apps», a gap that each manufacturer's layer defines in its own way. Blocked, the phone isn't mute, but it isn't intact either. Google settles it in a single sentence and we quote it exactly as it stands, because any summary betrays it: your child «will be able to answer phone calls and press Emergency to make a call if the device has a calling plan (Android phones only)». It promises no more than that: not that they can call any number, nor that it holds on a tablet with no calling plan. «They can always call» and «they can never call» are the two ways of getting it wrong.
In Google Play, from Family Link: select your child > Controls > Google Play > tap the type of content you want to filter > choose how to filter or restrict it. The same settings are at familylink.google.com and at g.co/YourFamily, from a browser. Right there, under «Purchase and download approvals», you choose what needs your permission, with a gap Google spells out: whatever is already installed or approved and whatever is in Play's family library won't ask for it again. Without a supervised account, the Play app itself brings its own control with a PIN: Google Play > top right, profile icon > Settings > Family > Content restrictions > Go to Parental controls > Set up a parental controls PIN > Next > create a PIN your child doesn't know > choose the filters. Google doesn't state any minimum Android version on that page; it does spell out two limits: it only holds on that phone, and it doesn't stop restricted content from showing up in a search or through a direct link. Chrome: Controls > Google Chrome and web, with three levels —allow all sites, try to block explicit sites, or only allow approved sites—. It applies to Chrome inside the supervised account. «No filter is perfect», says that same page. Search: when you turn supervision on «SafeSearch filtering will be turned on automatically and locked», only you can manage it and Incognito mode is disabled; you review it under Controls > Google Search. Without a supervised account it's turned on by hand in the Google app: Google app > your profile picture or initial > Settings > SafeSearch > Filter, Blur or Off. If a padlock appears, the setting is already locked and can't be changed. YouTube: for children under 13 there are two routes, YouTube Kids or a supervised experience with three content levels (on Google's Spanish page, «Niños mayores», «Adolescentes» and «Adolescentes mayores»: older kids, teens and older teens). Separately there's the Restricted Mode of the YouTube app, under profile photo > Settings > General. An honest warning about those last two paths: the internal menus of the Google app and of the YouTube app carry no version number in the official help and get redesigned several times a year. They're the first ones on this whole page that will age. If the label doesn't match the one on your phone, what rules is the help pages linked at the end, not what you read here.
Contacts: Family Link > Controls > Contacts, calls and messages. It governs calls and SMS from compatible apps, and Google marks the limit on that same page: with WhatsApp or Google Chat installed, your child «will be able to call and send text messages to numbers that aren't in their parent-managed contacts, even if you have limited them». Location: the path Google documents starts from the tab, not from the child. Family Link app > Location > select your child. To leave it enabled the first time, from that same tab: More > Location settings > turn on «See your child's location», with the device's location switched on. It works on Android devices and on compatible Fitbit devices. And here comes the question that comes back the most: «the location stopped showing up». Google documents three causes and only three: that the device is off, that it isn't connected to the internet, or that it hasn't been used recently. If none of the three explains what you're seeing, what's left to check isn't in Google's help, because it lives in the manufacturer's layer: battery saving and background activity restrictions can hold back an app that needs to report in all the time, and each brand names those menus in its own way. That's where your brand's guide helps; we're not going to invent the path for you. The alerts you'll receive are also a short, closed list: new apps, website requests, activity controls, location settings and the arrival and departure alerts you set up. Nothing beyond that.
None of this is a secret: it's in Google's documentation, and knowing it today saves you from trusting a wall that has doors. Let's start with the two that do close, because until this review this guide said that one of them had no key, and it was wrong. Digital Wellbeing is a different tool from Family Link: it lives on the phone, it's handled by whoever uses it and it isn't administered remotely from yours. It comes on many Android phones, but not on all of them: Google clarifies that the steps and the options change depending on the device, and it doesn't publish a minimum version for the feature; the only version that page mentions is for the screen time widget, «on devices running Android 9 or later». If you don't find it in Settings, that path isn't documented for your model. What Google does document is that its limits can be locked: «If you want to set app limits on a device that only you can change, you can set up a PIN». The path is Digital Wellbeing > App timers > App timer PIN. It's four digits, Google warns you not to share it, and it's turned off from that same option. It doesn't turn Digital Wellbeing into remote parental control, but it does stop the limit from being wiped in two taps. The other door is the quietest one: a second user profile, or guest mode. Since supervision hangs off the account and not off the device, each profile has «its own personal space on the device», with its own accounts, apps and settings, and nothing you set up applies there. Google documents the switch for preventing it, and it's on your side, in the Family Link app: select your son or daughter > Controls > Devices > pick the device > turn off «Add/remove user». The scope has to be stated carefully: that page belongs to the Google Kids Space help and is written for Android devices with several users; if that switch doesn't appear on your child's phone, the path isn't documented for that model. And if the profiles already exist and you decide to leave them, Google asks you to cover them from the other side: «Make sure to set a screen lock for each new user you've created. If you have an adult profile on the tablet, check that it's set up with a PIN or a password to make sure your child can't get into other profiles». Then there's what doesn't close. Messaging apps, because what holds for WhatsApp and Google Chat holds for any third-party app. Browsers that aren't Chrome, including the one the manufacturer ships from the factory, which don't obey the web filter. SafeSearch, which doesn't apply if your child hasn't signed in to their Google account or if there's another search app installed on the phone —Google names Google Go—, and which in any case «only works on Google Search». The Play PIN and YouTube's Restricted Mode, which «is turned on at the browser or device level» and is switched off from the same menu where it was switched on, with no PIN in between, because they live on a device and not in the account. And switching the phone off, which erases the location from the map with no documented warning. The filter itself doesn't promise a wall either. The official FAQ puts it like this: «Family Link doesn't block inappropriate content, but its settings offer you the possibility of filtering it», and your child «may occasionally come across explicit, graphic or other content that you don't want them to see». And what Google flatly doesn't document: reading WhatsApp, Instagram or TikTok messages; keystroke logging, screenshots or call recording; a location history; blocking the installation of apps downloaded from outside Play; and an alert when your child tries to remove supervision. For that last case, what backs you up isn't an alarm: it's that until they're 18, stopping supervision needs your approval.
Google doesn't publish any price or paid plan for Family Link, and its requirements guide only asks you to have a Google account, which is created at no cost. Put precisely: there's no documented charge. That isn't the same as a promise that it will be free forever, and that promise would have to come from Google, not from us.
It depends on the route. If you're going to supervise an account they already have, Google says it explicitly: «Your child will have to give you their consent when you set up supervision on their account». If instead you create the Google Account for them from scratch from the Family Link app, Google doesn't document any equivalent step on their screen. We can't claim that it exists or that it doesn't: only that it isn't documented. Whether the supervision has been talked through is your decision, not a technical requirement.
Yes. Family Link hangs off the Google account, not off the device, and Google's help talks about an «Android device» throughout. The practical difference is in the limits: «Daily limits apply to each Android device or Chromebook your child uses», so the phone and the tablet are two separate budgets, not one shared budget.
No. No page of the Family Link help documents reading messages from third-party apps. The closest thing is Contacts, calls and messages, which governs calls and SMS from compatible apps, and that same page warns that with WhatsApp or Google Chat installed your child can write to numbers that aren't on the list you manage.
There's no alert: the official list of Family Link notifications includes new apps, website requests, activity controls, location settings and the arrival and departure alerts you set up, and an attempt to remove supervision isn't on it. What does back you up is a rule, not an alarm: until they're 18, stopping supervision needs your approval. Separately, removing the account from the device takes that device's supervision with it, and there Google warns that doing it in the wrong order can lock the phone.
This guide is general information, not legal or psychological advice. Every menu path comes from Google's official documentation as of the review date, and states the Android version when Google states it; where Google doesn't state it, this guide doesn't invent it either. The pages linked at the end are Google's Spanish-language help, which is where this guide was written and checked: the quotes are translated from those pages, and the wording on Google's English pages may differ. Google warns in its own help that some steps may vary depending on the device; it also redesigns the Family Link app and rewrites its help pages fairly often, and manufacturers change the names of the Settings menus with every update to their layer. If the path on your phone doesn't match, check your brand's guide or Google's official help before taking anything for granted. CatWatchful is this site's product and has no commercial relationship with Google.
Related guides: Set up parental controls on a Samsung Galaxy · Parental controls on Xiaomi · Set up parental controls on Motorola · Alternatives to Google Family Link · Signs of grooming & cyberbullying · Recommended screen time · Talking to your child about parental controls · Is it legal to monitor my child?