Is it possible to disable the "unsend message" feature on my child's iPhone?

My kid knows that his father and I agree to let him have an iPhone on the condition that we can review his texts at any time (many of his friends' parents have the same conditions). Now that iMessage/iPhone allows you to "unsend" a message within a couple of minutes after it's sent, they are sending and immediately un-sending messages during a chat to avoid the prying eyes of parents (and monitoring apps like Bark, etc.). The recipient sees the message in real time and then they unsend, leaving no trace of what was said. Obviously the fact that there are things he doesn't want me to see is raising concerns, and the fact that those texts don't exist anywhere - even in "recently deleted" items, makes it harder to monitor or verify what's going on. I am going to talk to my child about this, obviously, but wondering if there is any way to disable or restrict this feature?

iPhone SE

Posted on Nov 15, 2022 10:38 AM

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Posted on Dec 14, 2022 04:40 PM

Agree. It’s really problematic.

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Is it possible to disable the "unsend message" feature on my child's iPhone?

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