Getting screen time under control in our house took longer than I’d like to admit. I tried the gentle approach. I tried the firm approach. I tried the “right, that’s it, I’m taking the router” approach, which went down about as well as you’d expect with three kids who’ve never known a world without Wi-Fi. What eventually worked wasn’t a single app or a strict rule. It was a combination of the right tools, a bit of trial and error, and an agreement that everyone actually understood. This guide covers what I use, what tripped me up, and what’s worth knowing before you start.
Before You Start: A Few Things Worth Knowing
The UK government published new official screen-use guidance in March 2026, based on an independent review by the Early Years Screen Time Advisory Group, and the numbers it sits against are pretty stark. The average child in the UK is currently spending over six hours a day on screens, across all age groups. For context, the official guidance recommends a maximum of one hour per day for children aged two to five, and no more than two hours of non-educational screen time for primary school-aged children. Teenagers aren’t exempt either. The NHS and WHO still flag excessive screen time as a genuine concern for mood, sleep, and mental health.
The guidance also recommends avoiding screen use during meals and for at least an hour before bedtime, and it explicitly advises against letting young children use AI toys, tools, or chatbots until there’s more evidence on how they affect development. That includes interactive robots, smart speakers, and AI chat apps.
Knowing all of this is useful when you’re having the conversation with your kids about why you’re putting limits in place. It’s not about punishment. It’s about balance.
Step 1: Start With a Family Screen Time Agreement
Before you touch a single setting on any device, sit down and talk it through. This sounds soft, but it makes a material difference. When kids understand why a rule exists, and have had some input into what the rule is, they’re far less likely to spend their energy trying to circumvent it.
A basic screen time agreement should cover:
- When screens are allowed: morning, after school, evenings, weekends
- What’s off the table: screens at dinner (non-negotiable in our house), and at least an hour before bed. This one’s backed by the research. Screen use before bed genuinely does disrupt sleep.
- What apps are always fine: school apps, banking apps, messaging with family
- What requires permission: social media, games, new app installs
- What happens when rules are broken: agreed in advance, calmly
Write it down. Stick it somewhere. It sounds overly formal, but it removes a huge amount of “but you never said that” from the equation.
If you want a quick way to sanity-check the rules before you start locking devices down, use the Family Tech Safety Checker . It is a simple checklist for the bits parents often forget: app approvals, location sharing, account recovery, age settings, screen-time rules, and the boring-but-important safety settings that stop this turning into a weekly argument.
Step 2: Setting Up Google Family Link for Android Phones
Google Family Link is genuinely useful once you understand how it works. The thing that caught me out for a while was the difference between Screen Time limits and Schedules, because they behave very differently.
Screen Time limits are a daily usage cap. Once your child hits, say, two hours of device use, the phone locks.
Schedules are time-based locks. This is where you block the phone during certain hours, like overnight or during school. Here’s the bit that trips almost everyone up: the schedule works by setting when the phone is locked, not when it’s unlocked. So if you want the phone available from 7:30am to 9pm, you don’t enter those times. Instead you set:
- Lock from 00:00 to 07:30
- Lock from 21:00 to 00:00
That leaves 07:30 to 21:00 as the open window. It’s completely counter-intuitive. You’d expect to simply say “allow between X and Y.” But once you know the logic, it makes sense. Take your time with this setting.
What saves a lot of grief: the ability to mark certain apps as Always Allowed, regardless of screen time limits or schedules. Messaging apps, school apps, and banking apps can be set as always-on. That way, the limits apply to games and social media without blocking the things that are genuinely needed.
To set this up: open the Family Link app on your phone, select your child’s account, go to Controls, then explore both Daily limit and Bedtime (which is the schedule function). Always Allowed apps are under App activity and limits.
Step 3: Setting Up Microsoft Family Safety for PCs and Laptops
For computers, Microsoft Family Safety gets the job done, even if “intuitive” isn’t the first word I’d use to describe it. The most important thing I can say here is: do not set up screen time restrictions during hours when your child needs to use the computer for schoolwork. I speak from experience. There is nothing quite like a mildly panicked kid standing at your elbow at 7pm because his history essay is due and the computer thinks it’s bedtime.
To set it up:
- Go to family.microsoft.com and sign in with your Microsoft account.
- Add your child’s Microsoft account to your family group (they’ll need one if they don’t have it already).
- Once added, go to their profile and select Screen time.
- You can set different schedules for different days, which is useful for weekends versus school days.
- Set a daily time limit (how many hours total) and specific hours when the device can be used.
The most useful feature is that it covers time across all Windows devices linked to their account, so the same rules apply whether they’re on their laptop or a family PC. App and game limits are also available, and you can restrict spending on the Microsoft Store.
Step 4: Apple Screen Time for iPhones and iPads
Apple Screen Time, accessed through Settings > Screen Time, is the most polished of the three tools in my experience. Set up Family Sharing first (Settings > your name > Family Sharing), then you can manage everything remotely from your own iPhone.
Key things to configure:
- Downtime: Blocks nearly everything except calls and apps you specifically allow. Set this for overnight and, honestly, for dinner time if you need a bit of backup.
- App Limits: You can cap categories (Social Networking, Games) or individual apps by the day.
- Always Allowed: Same concept as Family Link. School apps, phone calls, and messages can stay on regardless of limits.
- Communication Limits: Useful for younger teens. You can control who they can contact during downtime.
- Screen Distance: Prompts your child to move their device further from their face if it’s held too close for extended periods.
One thing worth knowing: as of the latest iOS updates, content filtering in Safari and nudity detection in messages and photos is now enabled by default for any Apple ID under 18. That takes one thing off your list. You can also now share your child’s age range with apps in a privacy-preserving way, which helps apps serve age-appropriate content without you having to configure each one individually. Parents can also remotely approve new contacts for their children when using Apple apps, which is a welcome addition.
Step 5: Age-Appropriate Expectations
The tools do the heavy lifting, but the settings need to reflect the child. What works for a younger child is very different from what you’d set for a teenager with more independence and genuine work to do on devices.
- Under 2: The UK government guidance is clear here. Avoid screen time other than for shared activities with family that encourage bonding, interaction, and conversation.
- Ages 2–5: A maximum of one hour per day, focused on age-appropriate content. Avoid fast-paced, over-stimulating videos, which may affect how young children learn to concentrate.
- Primary school age (roughly 5–11): Keep it simple and structured. Hard limits, scheduled lockdowns, no social media. Always Allowed should be very short. Non-educational screen time should stay under two hours per day.
- 11–14: More flexibility, but still structured. Agree on a daily limit together. Let them earn extra time at weekends. School hours should be locked unless they specifically need device access.
- 15–17: The conversation matters more than the lock. At this age, you’re transitioning from enforcement to building habits. Keep Downtime in place for overnight. Talk about what the research actually shows. Teenagers and screen time do correlate with mood and sleep issues, and most older teens get that when it’s explained properly.
It’s also worth noting that the American Academy of Pediatrics has recently shifted away from firm screen time limits towards a more nuanced approach focused on the quality of content. Their guidance warns about commercialised and algorithmic content, but acknowledges that child-centred designs encouraging critical thinking and social connection can provide benefits. Quality matters as much as quantity.
If It’s Still Not Working
They’re bypassing the limits: Check that your child’s account is properly linked and that you haven’t accidentally granted them manager access. On Family Link, make sure supervision is active.
The schedule locks the wrong hours: Go back to the schedule and remember the logic. You’re entering locked hours, not open hours. Draw it out on paper if needed.
The rules apply to the wrong device: Microsoft Family Safety only covers devices where they’re signed in with their linked Microsoft account. Check they’re not signed into a separate local account.
Getting this right takes a couple of evenings of setup and a willingness to revisit the settings as your kids get older. But once it’s in place, it genuinely reduces the daily friction. Fewer arguments, clearer expectations, and a lot less of that particular brand of bedtime negotiation that every parent of a teenager knows too well. If you’re still stuck after trying all of this, drop me a message through the contact page and I’ll do my best to help.
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