If your child has an Android phone or tablet, Google's free Family Link is the parental-control system built for exactly your situation — no paid spy apps, no shady monitoring tools. From your own phone you approve or block apps, set daily screen-time limits and bedtime, filter websites, require your approval for Play Store purchases, and see the device's location. Setup takes about fifteen minutes, and it works best when it is done openly, with your child knowing the rules.
1. What you need
You need your own Google account on your phone, and a Google account for your child. The child account is the heart of the system: supervision attaches to the account, not just the device, so the rules follow your child if the phone changes. If your child does not have a Google account yet, Family Link creates one during setup (for a child under 13, the parent must create it). You also need your child's Android device in your hand for a few minutes during setup — this cannot be done secretly from another room, and it is not meant to be.
2. Install Family Link and add your child
On your own phone, install Google Family Link from the Play Store (a version also exists for iPhone, so a parent on iPhone can manage a child on Android). Open it, sign in with your Google account, and choose that you are the parent. Tap Add child: either sign in with your child's existing Google account or create a new one, following the on-screen steps and agreeing to the parental consent screens. Google then gives you a setup code/instructions for the child's device.
3. Set up supervision on the child's phone
On your child's Android phone, sign in with the child's Google account (Settings → Accounts, or during device setup if the phone is new). Android detects that the account belongs to a supervised child and walks you through adding supervision: you confirm with your parent password, review what supervision can and cannot do, and finish. From this moment the child's phone appears inside your Family Link app. If the phone was previously used with a normal adult account, the cleanest route is to add the child account and make it the phone's main account.
4. Set the controls that actually matter
In your Family Link app, open your child's profile and set these four first. Daily limit & bedtime: set a total screen-time limit for school days and weekends separately, plus a bedtime after which the device locks (calls to parents still work). App controls: review the installed apps, block the ones you do not accept, and set per-app time limits for games and video apps. App approvals: turn on the setting that your child must ask before installing new apps from the Play Store — you get a notification and approve or deny from your phone. Filters: set Chrome to block mature sites, set Google Search to SafeSearch, and set Play Store content ratings by age, plus require your approval for purchases and in-app spending so a game cannot quietly drain your card or balance.
5. Turn on location — calmly
Family Link can show your child's device location on your map, which is genuinely useful for school runs and tuition trips. Turn it on in the Location section, keep the child device's location services on, and tell your child it is on and why. Used openly, it is a safety feature; used secretly, it becomes the reason teenagers learn to leave the phone at home.
6. Everyday management and stopping supervision
Day to day, your child can request more time or a new app from their phone, and you approve from the notification — no need to take the phone in hand. If a limit misfires (a school app blocked, homework research filtered), adjust that single app or filter rather than switching everything off. When the time comes to end supervision, you do it from your parent app in your child's settings; your child is notified, which is deliberate — growing out of supervision should be a conversation, not a hack. For older children, combine these controls with the privacy habits in our WhatsApp privacy settings guide and the fraud warnings in our OTP scam safety guide.
