We have a chaotic household—my wife has an iPhone, I'm on Android, and we've got a Kindle Fire for the kids. Trying to set up actual parental controls that work across everything and it's a nightmare. Has anyone found a good third-party solution that's not super expensive? We tried Bark but it feels invasive even to me. Open Screen Time or something similar?
What about just one shared tablet for kids stuff? I know that sounds insane with multiple kids but it eliminates the fragmentation problem entirely. Older kid gets iPhone when they're mature enough for it, little one uses Fire, etc.
This is the exact problem we have. My solution was to just... give the kids Chromebooks and lock down Google Family Link across everything. Less chaotic than trying to manage 5 different devices with 5 different systems.
Have you just tried using the built-in controls on each device and coordinating passwords? iOS Screen Time, Android Family Link, and Kindle's parental controls? Free and they actually work if you set them up right.
Sign in to join the conversation.
You're dealing with 3 different ecosystems (Apple, Android, Fire) which is a parental controls nightmare. Bark has Android app, iOS app, and Fire app but yeah it's pricey if you're doing full family.
Screentime is a total pain to set up initially but once you do it, iOS kids are locked down pretty solid. The Android side is where you'll struggle.