Every evening, it's basically the same conversation.

"Dinner's ready."

"Coming."

Five minutes later...

"Dinner's getting cold."

"Just one more minute."

I feel like getting my kids to sit down for a family dinner is one of the most exhausting parts of my day. Honestly, I don't want to win the screen-time battle. I don't want dinner to become another rule, another punishment, or another "because I said so."

I just miss the simple idea of everyone sitting at the same table for a little while, talking about their day, without having to fight about screens first. So I‘ve been wondering: what if we gave kids a small reason to choose family time instead of constantly taking sth away? Maybe some kind of reward?

How do you deal with the "dinner" situation? Any strategies that have actually worked for your family?

Hello!

I managed to get admin access on my PC after a long time of trying to figure out WPCMon. I’ll explain how I did it later.

The app was called Family Safety, but luckily I thought of a way around it. After that, it was pretty much smooth sailing no spyware to worry about and no more time limits.

However, I’ve now run into another problem: Synology Router Safe Access.

I have time limits on there too. You might think it works like normal screen-time limits, where a message pops up saying, “Oh damn, you can’t use your PC until tomorrow.”

Nope.

This one is much stranger. It basically kills my network connection, and I can’t get back online.

I’ve tried a bunch of things, but nothing has worked so far. Right now, I’m thinking about using a MAC address spoofer, although I’m not sure whether that would be detectable.

So, please help me!

HOW I BYPASSED FAMILY SAFETY

Prerequisites

• VirtualBox or VMware
• Any virtual machine

THAT’S IT! NOW COPY ME!

You obviously need admin access to set up these VMs, so here’s the excuse I used:

>

Now you have a VM. Set one up using a YouTube tutorial if you’re stuck.

Once you have your VM ready, open an AI assistant and type:

>my vm isnt working give me a list of commands in powershell to fix it

(Even though it is working — obviously, don’t tell the AI that.)

Then, get your parents to look at what the AI suggested and ask them to open Windows PowerShell with administrator privileges.

Once it’s open, just say to the ai:

>this is my pc username and email how to get admin with powershell

And now you have an administrator PowerShell window.

From there, I used information such as my PC username and email address and asked the AI about getting administrator access. I then followed the instructions it gave me.

THE HARD PART — DUMMY PCs

Nice! You now have administrator access on your PC, which gives you a lot more control.

However, this caused a massive problem.

Family Safety could detect the change and potentially show something like:

>(your pc name) has admin access

That’s obviously bad.

So, I changed my PC’s name in Settings to something that looked more like a virtual machine, such as:

>(my name virtual machine)

Then, on the VM, I removed administrator privileges from the account using win + rnetplwiz, changed the account back to a standard user, and gave the VM a more normal-looking name.

FINISHED!

And that’s basically it!

Enjoy your well-deserved break from hell.

I’ll post updates soon.

Also, if anyone has useful information about Synology Router Safe Access, let me know!

I helped you guys out, so please help a brother in need.

— From a random kid in the UK

("yes this was marked up and polished with ai sorry! i have Dyslexia lol :)

anyone got methods to find screen time passwords idrk so jus lmk

This community seems to include both parents who are worried about online safety and teens who feel parental controls go too far, so I’d like to understand both perspectives.

For parents: what information do you actually need in order to protect your child?

For teens: what kind of monitoring crosses the line and starts damaging trust?

For example, imagine a parent was told only that a topic had increased significantly over the past couple of weeks: “Activity related to body image and rapid weight loss has increased across search, YouTube, and AI chatbots.”

The parent would not see the individual searches, videos, messages, or conversations. Would that feel like a more reasonable balance between safety and privacy? Or would it still feel invasive, too vague, or not useful enough?

I’m interested in honest reactions from both sides. No product link or promotion.

So my dad says he can see what I play, and how long I play it, but he doesn't have any screentime app installed and It's my own steam account. How could he be doing it or is he just lying? I'm sorry I just don't know where else to ask.

I beat every screen time app I tried by tapping "ignore limit" until it meant nothing. So I built one without that button. You pick how long you get and how long your apps lock after — and you pick that while you're thinking clearly, not at 1am.

The problem: the only person who's tested it is me. That proves nothing.

It's free. If you try it for even a day and tell me what's broken or confusing, that would help more than anything.

It's called access - screen time locks.

To put it shortly I’m not the mum, also I don’t feel like my mum is a bad mum for not knowing how to do restriction stuff. I know how to restrict my screen time through apps like ScreenZen and opal, but I want to know how to restrict tiktok and time off my sisters phone all in one app. I’ve restricted my brothers switches through parental controls and took off YouTube because they were being weird with it.

The reason why I’m doing this (she’s twelve so she’s older now) is because of her behaviour recently. Everything she’s watching encouraging her to live in a room with growing mould and fruit flies, probably from just having the accessibility on her phone to lay down all day. She also goes through phases where she doesn’t eat but steals whole bags of easy peels and one time half a honey dew melon cause she wanted it. But also she’s become a liar on tiktok reposts. She:

\- claims to her friends she’s an experienced drinker and how buzzballs are light work
\- the worst thing she’s ever seen is our dead baby cousins body (we don’t have a dead baby cousin)
\- she says my mum beats her
\- she says that she’s forced into Egyptian cultural clothing when our family come round (our step grandad is Egyptian and we don’t see him)
\- ‘'Look at you, you're disgusting, why did you come back home you should have died out there. Look at you, look at your body. No. You can't be my baby’ saying that my mum said this to her which she didn’t. To be frank no one’s said this to her so I thought it was a movie quote but no she’s just lying.

Anyways cause of sister code I wasn’t gonna show it, but my little sister has a tendency to steal stuff since she was younger so out of annoyance I went through her reposts and showed my mum. She already had her phone taken atp for something similar with her friends. Also she was already receiving help from the wellbeing department of my old school so she’s getting professional help

So given my situation, is there an app I can use to remotely choose what apps she can go on and how long for.

My younger sibling is 11-12 and has been falling into somewhat concerning circles online + talking with much older teens. As someone who's been in very unsafe situations due to communities like these, I've been trying to get them off naturally to no avail. I have brought this up to my parents, but they're mostly just pushing the responsibility to me instead.

I've been considering FamiSafe as an option, but I wanted to get other opinions because I'm on a bit of a right budget. Is it worth the money? I know it monitors unsafe messages and images, but I'm not sure if there's a better option (I have not heard good things about Bark on here).

I’ve been 18 for a while now but my mom still keeps Qustodio on my device. She uses it for location monitoring, screen time, and blocking a few websites, which is annoying but bearable. What I’m really concerned about is the message monitoring feature. While researching Qustodio this morning, I learned that it can show parents their child’s message history, and knowing my mother she almost certainly has this turned on. I am now incredibly concerned that she may be snooping through my messages with my partner. I have tried every single method I can find to disable Qustodio from my own device (vpn trick, taking Qustodio off of mobile data, etc.) and nothing is working. Is my only option to find my mom’s Qustodio login and turn everything off? Is there something else that can be done due to my age? Or do I just need to suck it up and save for a new phone?

Edit: literally all I needed to do was a factory reset 😭 that was so easy

My mother just asked me to share my location and I don't want to. I asked if she wants it everytime or just when I go out. She said everytime and it pisses me off. I don't even go out often and when I do, it's always WITH her for stuff like groceries (I don't hang out with friends. For real, I'm always at school or at home). Also, I heard about battery draining fast if the tracking stuff is always on. I'm 17 and I don't like the fact that she is trying to take my privacy (I see it this way) away just before I turn 18. When I was 11, she had no problem letting me alone at the park while my phone hadn't a phone number (so not usable without wifi) and suddenly, she wants me to share my location non stop... Like I paid my phone myself and I don't want it to he controlled. Another thing is like, if I accept, I'll be stuck with this tracking stuff forever because if I ask to remove it some day, it will look suspicious. Her argument is that anything can happen these days (which is true to me) but like, I still feel that she's overthinking. The only walk I take is from my bus stop to my house (4 mins of walk, straight line in my small street). She said it could be dangerous but my town is very chill and at the same time, she often walks alone (for about 30 mins) WITHOUT even her phone so it makes no sense to me. I don't know if I'm making a big deal for nothing but I'm upset and it feels unfair and controlling

I never wanted my 11-year-old to have social media. I’ve done everything I could through Screen Time to prevent them from downloading social media or inappropriate apps…or at least I *thought* I had.

Yesterday, I went through my child’s iPad and found screenshots that looked like they came from a comment section. I noticed my child’s screen name (which, unfortunately, was their actual name) and immediately went down a rabbit hole trying to figure out where it came from.

Turns out **CapCut**, which I always thought of as just a video/photo editing app, has what appears to be an almost hidden social media component.

I started looking through it and was honestly shocked. I didn’t see adults…almost everyone appeared to be kids, and based on what I could tell, many seemed to be around 10–14 years old. After seeing what was being posted, I’m starting to wonder if this is where some kids who aren’t allowed to have social media are going because their parents don’t realize CapCut has this feature.

And some of the things I saw were **wildly inappropriate**. Things I honestly don’t even feel comfortable repeating here.
If your child has CapCut on their iPad/iPhone, I would strongly recommend checking it out yourself. Go into the **“Me”** section in the bottom right and see what’s there. I had absolutely no idea this existed.

I’m honestly disgusted and furious that this is apparently happening on an app I thought was simply an editing tool. I’m seriously considering contacting CapCut directly to ask whether they’re aware of what’s happening in that section and what they’re doing about it.

**Parents, please check your kids’ CapCut accounts.** I genuinely had no idea.

UPDATE: How to find out if your kid has an account: click the “me” section, and then enter your child’s phone number or email. if they have an account, it’ll send a verification code to their phone or email. using that verification code will allow you to log in. from there you’ll be able to see if they have a profile or not.

UPDATE #2: I found a way to remove the App Store and Safari from their home screen entirely. If they want to download an app we will have to do it together. Thanks for all the helpful comments and to all the teenagers out there who were trolling in my comments, you’ll understand how I feel when you have kids. Just wait and see.

UPDATE # 3: How to remove Safari and the App store: Screentime > Content & Privacy Restrictions > Allowed Apps & Features. From there, you can toggle off whatever apps you want including the camera.

I’m 18(F) starting college in a week and my dad decides to snoop into my Instagram account and stalk my account?. I have two phone. One with my old number and the other with my new number which is connected to my bank account n stuff. My dad usually takes the other phone(with old number) to the gym and it has Instagram in it. That Instagram has my account, my private acc and my mom’s Instagram account and I thought he never really checked it (which he didn’t)so I didn’t care much either. Yesterday he comes into my room and starts yelling at me for posting “pictures”of myself in my private account (which only has girls in it btw AND ITS PRIVATE) and he said if I was going to have “multiple” accounts and post “inappropriate” pictures of myself he’d disown me?? I apologized and the next day I removed Instagram from that phone thinking that was the end of it but today he comes home and yells at me for deleting Instagram on that phone and slapped me. Turns out he was checking it every single fucking day. And then he says this stupid fucking lie about being “respectful” and letting me have an account but continues to snoop around and check it. Now he’s asked for my password to all accounts I’m so fucking pissed off right now

My 14 y/o little miss keeps finding ways around screen time controls and it’s wearing me out- as well as the lying about it.

I have an iPhone as does she. It’s set to shut off at 11 and turn back on at 7 am. No matter what I do with the controls- she finds a way to work around them and then lies when I ask her about it.

The latest is some kind of “2 more minutes” thing. But you can do it indefinitely so it winds up being 2 more hours 😑 or whatever.
We were having her charge it downstairs because this is FAR from our first rodeo with this issue, but she’s in high school now- and we really want her to learn how to manage things.
I grew suspicious over the last few days because she was coming home and taking a 2-3 hour nap which is unusual for her (but not for her friends who have free reign on their devices). I checked her screen time and at first, it wasn’t showing up as usual- which was odd…so I was already on alert. The same thing happened yesterday and for some reason I was able to check her screen time again and she had used her 2 more minutes thing until 230 this morning- and had to be up for a school sports activity at 6.
When I asked her about the use, she lied and said it was her friend signed in on her device. First, it doesn’t work that way and secondly, I can see the time she’s posting.
Idk why- but the lying bothers me way more than the phone use.
People will say- oh they don’t feel safe enough to tell the truth. I say- they just don’t want consequences. At all. For anything.
Then some will say- natural consequences. I am all for those unless they affect me or others. In her sport- being tired leads to injury. Not just for her. For others.
Don’t let her participate anymore? I am already $2,000 in and it’s just beginning so I’m reluctant to do that.

Other than the obvious- charging the phone downstairs again- does anyone have any ideas?
And the lying 😭 I am not heavy handed with the consequences. I know friends are all encompassing at this age- I may take it for 1 day. But it makes me not trust her because any time she thinks she might lose it, or anything else- which again is not for extended periods of time- she will lie. I try really hard not to take it personally but it’s exhausting.
I understand why her friends parents have given up and just let these kids do whatever on their phones all hours of the night. It’s wearing me out and eventually she will just get a phone from someone else.

Any ideas? (Oh and botlo for the “2 more minutes” these controls aren’t as finite as you think.)

My brother has a Chromebook, (not sure which kind) and my parents want to install Qustodio (for a good reason) on his laptop. I’ve heard that he can bypass it by using guest mode, is this true? I can figure out how to disable guest mode if I do a few google searches, but he’s already super mad at my parents for installing the app, and I don’t want him to be mad at me for “making it worse”. The best answers I’ve gotten are from the dumb Google search AI thing, and a small blurb from the Qustodio website saying that they “reccomend” disabling Guest mode, and that it could “potentially” compromise the app, but I want to

A. Hear from a human, and

B. Get a firm “yes” or “no” as to if this is true, not just a “potentially“ or a “we recommend“. I don’t want him to be upset at me like he’s upset with our parents, but I do genuinely think he needs the app at least for a little while…

Also, from what I understand, my parents have the app installed on his Chromebook, but not the browser extension. I also heard that this means his searches may not be monitored- is this also true?

I’ll just get straight to the point. I’m 15M, about to be 16 this October 2026. Almost a year ago, my dad put parental controls on my phone and iPad. He used this app called Bark, and since it’s a post flair on this sub, I’m assuming you guys already know all about it. Given my experience with past apps like Qustodio, I quickly disabled Bark by going into the Device Management and VPN section of iPhone settings. Fast forward 10 months later, at a post that is a few weeks before now. My parents are divorced, and recently a new coparenting agreement was passed through the courts. It apparently includes the restriction of all social media until I am 18. My parents don’t agree on who came up with the idea and my dad claims it doesn’t even exist, but I’m completely in the dark about it since I can’t see the document. Anyway, my mom has been blocking access to social media sites through the WiFi connection. I’ve gotten around it for some devices, but others still have all social media blocked. Really, any service that could possibly be used to communicate with someone, including Gmail. She also has time limits that block the devices at night, but that’s no big deal.

Is this unreasonable? I’m considering buying my own WiFi network or cellular plan just to combat this. And for anyone asking, my phone is not enabled for cellular. I can only use it on WiFi. This has nothing to do with the previously mentioned parental controls and everything to do with the fact that my dad pays for my phone plan. This was decided long before the events of this story take place. That is to say, I cannot tether with a personal hotspot or use data.

EDIT: Forgot to mention this since it’s summer and not currently relevant, but my mom makes me charge my phone downstairs in the kitchen. Sometimes she’ll let me charge it on my desk in my room, but even during the summer she will not allow it on my nightstand. During the school year, she will not let me call or communicate with my dad after 8:30, and she will not allow device usage after 8:00.

EDIT 2: Two statements seem to be very prevalent in the comments:

1: that I should talk with my parents, respectfully try and convince them otherwise, and continue to ask to see the document. Because this is in a court document, they’re both legally required to do what it says. My dad claims the social media rule doesn’t exist, but my mom is so scared of violating the agreement and facing court penalties (for a rule that might not even be real) that she refuses to change anything. Her and my dad also refuse to show me the document so I can see what’s real or not, I’ve asked both several times. To make all of this worse, they fight like cats and dogs and cannot agree on anything. It’s a miracle they managed to stay in the same room as each other long enough to pass the document. Oh, and my dad lives in California, and me and my mom live in Missouri. So that makes things even harder.

2: that I should just stay off social media anyway. Well, I’d love to, but I can’t. Social media, influencing, content creation is what I want to do for a job. It’s what I aspire to do, and I’ve already been doing it for a year and a half before all this blew up. If I pause this until I’m 18, I will have made the point of starting early so as to have content creation as my full career once I am 18 pointless. My thinking is, if I start at this age, by the time I’m 18, I’ll be making enough money from it to sustain a job, and I won’t have to live with either parent any longer than I need to. So yeah.

Just some extra information: my desire to want to live on my own once I’m 18 and graduated is mostly about independence. Since I was little, I’ve always been very independent. Even when my parents were together I still wanted to move out as soon as I was 18, so I could be my own person, have my own place, be an adult. Although what’s happening with court and social media definitely isn’t helping matters.

I’m curious what this community thinks about a different approach to parental controls.

Most screen time tools focus on hard limits: once time is up, access is blocked. That can work, but in some families it also turns into a daily argument.

I’ve been working on a screen time flow where a child can request extra time by sending a short voice message and optional photo proof of effort, such as homework, chores, reading, or practice.

The parent can then approve or decline the request remotely.

The idea is not to remove limits or make screen time unlimited. It is to make exceptions more intentional and to connect extra screen time with visible effort.

A simple example:

“My homework is done. Can I unlock games for 15 minutes?”

I’d love honest opinions from parents or people who use parental control tools:

- Would this reduce conflict, or create too much negotiation?

- Would voice/photo proof be useful or annoying?

- What age range would this make sense for?

- What privacy concerns would you have with this kind of system?

Hi everyone I have a 10 years old and he is on the spectrum (autism) he is very social but has little opportunity to interact with other kids his age because he is home schooling. Lately he has been asking to get any apps to allow him to chat with friends but of course we are not letting him, so I would like to see what other parents are doing. I’m starting to get concerned about his future and want him to learn to socialize on a save environment. Any serious recommendations would be appreciated. Thanks.

Sharing directly, no pitch — I built a parental control app for Android called Paxio.

What it does: daily screen time limits, app blocking, content filtering by category, bedtime/schedule locks, a parent PIN so settings can't be changed without it, and uninstall protection so the app can't just be removed by the kid.

On privacy: no location tracking, no reading messages, photos, or keystrokes, no full browsing history stored (only whether a specific site was blocked, and which category), no ad trackers bundled into the app. Content filtering runs on-device.

Works either way — separate phones for you and your kid, or one shared phone with a PIN-protected switch between parent and child view.

Screen time limits, app blocking, content filtering, and PIN protection are free — permanently, not a trial.

First parents who try it get Paxio Pro free for 3 months.

DM me if you want more info