How to Set Up Screen Time on an iPad for Your Child

Many parents want to set up Screen Time before handing a child an iPad. But Screen Time has a lot of settings, and it is hard to know where to start. On top of that, iPadOS 27 changed the parental controls screens quite a lot.

In this post I go through the settings in order, using the menu names from Apple’s support page “Use parental controls to manage your child’s iPhone or iPad”. Labels can differ slightly from page to page, and the screens also vary by region and by your child’s age, so please compare with what you see on your own device.

Before you start

Apple’s page asks you to do a few things first.

Set up Family Sharing and create a child account. Your child needs their own Apple Account in your Family Sharing group. Apple notes that it is important for the child not to share an account with anyone else in the family.

Update every device in the family. To use the new Screen Time, every device in the Family Sharing group needs iOS 27, iPadOS 27 or the matching versions, and the organiser or a parent needs to update the parental controls. If you can’t update every device, Apple says you can keep using the previous version of Screen Time, or adjust parental controls directly on the child’s device.

Add a parent to your child’s contacts. This is needed so your child can send you approval requests.

You can do all of this from your own iPhone or iPad. The starting point is always the same: open Settings, tap Family, then tap your child’s name.

What is already on

According to Apple, Ask to Buy and Ask to Browse are on by default for children under 13, and Limit Adult Websites is on by default for children under 18. In some regions, certain settings can’t be turned off.

So if the account is set up properly, some protection is already in place. What follows is checking it and adjusting it to suit your family.

1. Apps & Websites

The first thing I would check is what your child can get and where they can go.

Purchases and downloads. Tap Apps & Websites and enter your Screen Time passcode if asked. Tap Restrictions, then Ask to Buy, and turn on Require Purchase Approval. When your child wants a new app, you get a request and can approve or decline it from your own device.

App Store settings. Under Apps & Websites, tap App Store to choose settings such as Installing Apps.

Website limits. In Apps & Websites, tap Restrictions, then Filtering under Websites. Choose Limit Adult Websites or Ask to Browse. To use Ask to Browse, set it to Approved Websites Only. Your child will then need your approval to open a new site in Safari or other supported browsers. You can approve sites in advance, such as ones used for school projects.

Individual apps and sites. Select an app or website in Apps & Websites and tap Block App or Block Website. Blocked apps aren’t deleted; they appear greyed out on the Home Screen. Everything you approve or block is listed under Allowed and Blocked.

Receiving requests. Your child’s requests arrive in your Messages app. According to another Apple page, you need to have sent and received messages with iMessage in the last 30 days to get them, and if you don’t respond within 24 hours your child has to send the request again. If requests aren’t reaching you, these are the first things to check.

2. Time

Next, decide when and for how long. In iPadOS 27 this is split into two features.

Screen Time Schedule. This lets you choose which apps your child can use at different times of day, like before school, during school and after school. You can set weekdays and weekends separately. From your child’s name, tap Screen Time Schedule, turn on Schedule, then scroll down and tap Add Schedule to choose the days.

Time Allowances. This sets how long your child can use apps in categories such as entertainment, games and social media. You set a daily budget across all categories, then adjust how much each category gets. From your child’s name, tap Time Allowances, tap the Add button and follow the instructions.

You can also pause device use, allow unlimited use or change the schedule for the day right from the Screen Time settings. My suggestion is not to plan everything in detail at the start. Begin with the hours before bedtime, see how it goes, and add more from there.

3. Content & Privacy Restrictions

From your child’s name, tap Content & Privacy Restrictions and enter your passcode. Under Content Restrictions you can choose age-appropriate ratings for apps, music, books, movies, TV shows and more. Siri, Game Center and privacy restrictions are here too.

This is also where you find Screen Distance, which alerts your child when the screen is held too close to their face. Depending on region and age, it may already be on.

4. Communication

If your child uses Messages or FaceTime on the iPad, use Allowed Contacts to decide who they can communicate with. Communication Safety stops your child from viewing or sharing photos and videos where nudity, gore or violence is detected.

About the Screen Time passcode

Most of these settings are protected by the Screen Time passcode. If your child learns it, none of the other settings mean much. There are three things I would be careful about.

Use a different number from the one that unlocks the iPad. Don’t type it in front of your child, who watches your hands more closely than you think. And write it down somewhere out of their reach so you don’t forget it.

What Screen Time’s web limits can and can’t do

Screen Time’s web limits decide which sites can open in Safari and supported browsers. With Approved Websites Only, sites you haven’t approved don’t open without your approval. It is a strong system.

But it works site by site. If you approve a video site, for example, you can’t control which videos or pages your child watches within it. That is true of any system that approves whole sites, including Kinder Browser. When choosing which sites to allow, it is worth looking at what is inside them.

How Kinder Browser fits in

Kinder Browser is a children’s web browser for iPhone and iPad that I make. To be clear from the start: Kinder Browser has no Screen Time features of its own, and no time limits. It is designed to be used alongside Screen Time.

The split I recommend is this. Let Screen Time handle when, how long and which apps. Let Kinder Browser handle which sites, inside the browser. The idea is to give your child their own way in, separate from the Safari that adults use.

In Kinder Browser, your child opens the sites you have set as the home page and bookmarks. If they tap a link that leads to a different site, it stops with the message “External links are disabled”. They can move between pages on the same site, and to sites you have added to the whitelist. Adult and gambling sites are blocked from the start by a built-in blocklist. The settings are behind a parental gate.

There are two things to watch out for. First, the default parental passcode is “0000”. Turn on Use CustomPIN and change it to your own number. Second, Kinder Browser keeps the screen from turning off while a page is displayed. This is so the screen doesn’t go dark during learning, but it means the time limit has to come from Screen Time, through Time Allowances or a Schedule.

If you want to stop your child leaving Kinder Browser for other apps, you can use Guided Access. Turn it on in Settings under Accessibility, then Guided Access. With Kinder Browser open, triple-click the top button to lock the iPad to that app.

One more note. If you use both Screen Time’s web limits and Kinder Browser, and a site you allowed in Kinder Browser doesn’t open properly, check the approved websites in Screen Time as well.

Getting Started with Kinder Browser covers the first setup, and Kinder Browser vs Other Ways to Keep a Child’s Web Safe compares it with Screen Time, Guided Access and other options.