iOS Updates disable Parental Controls/Downtime on Kids phone. (iOS 16+)
The iOS 16 updates are all resetting my kids Parental Control / Downtime / Restriction settings. They had full access all the time. The setting were reset on my phone as well. We thought it was a fluke so we set up the parental controls again and everything was OK until the next time apple updated.
With each iOS update, it resets the Parental Control / Downtime / Restriction settings on both my phone and the kids phone. I must set them up again from scratch.
The parental controls then work again but intermittently they turn off on the kids phone only. My settings show that they're still active. (I'll get to this part down below)
What's VERY odd is that the iOS update disables the parental controls for 2 out of 3 of my kids. One works fine so I know I'm not crazy! (in this way). The phones are all the same model of iPhone (iPhone SE 2020). ;
To Resolve this, My wife & I have tried:
- Moving their account to another phone (same model)
- Resetting their parental control settings.
- Changing some of the settings (eg. allowing Safari app but only 1 or 2 "allowed" websites. And changing time limits on apps)
- Hard resetting the phone and NOT restoring settings.
^^^ --- The iOS update is the first problem that at least we can replicate when needed. Here's another symptom of probably the same issue --- vvv
We have both the App Store and Safari in "allowed apps" disabled. We also disabled adult websites and ONLY have one website in the allowed websites list, just in case. Installing apps is not allowed in the settings.
Intermittently, 2 of my children will have FULL access to the Internet using Safari, including pornographic websites and the app store which then allows installing of apps. There's no rhyme or reason to it that we can tell. When it happens, their Safari app appears and so does the App Store. The amount of time it lasts varies. The time of day also varies. When it is finished the apps just disappear again. Restarting the phone seems to fix the problem temporarily. It's maddening though because on my phone it shows that the restrictions are still in place yet they have full access!
Sporatically losing parental controls is worse then it never working because they're unsupervised when it happens and they're just kids and don't know how to avoid adult content.
- Has anyone noticed that the iOS update turns off their iOS parental control settings?
- Does your child's parental control get disabled temporarily but only on their phone? If so, what have you done to fix it?
I've seen many posts about similar problems but I thought I'd share my own experience. I've tried the basic troubleshooting steps apple seems to auto-reply with and I expect that to be the first response to my post. Hopefully i'll get a different answer because this is happening to a LOT of people and only on 2 of 3 of my phones in my household (kids are all the same age). So this is not a problem with something I am doing wrong (but i'm still open to that idea)
