Google’s Family Link Parental Controls now Available in Canada

Controlling what your child is exposed to is a very serious endeavor. There’s a lot of questionable content out there and a myriad of ways to access it. YouTube is notorious for letting you do practically whatever you want if you get enough views, and the site is insanely popular with younger crowd. Kids need to be monitored, but they don’t want to be treated like kids. They don’t want lesser versions of what their parents and older siblings have. Family Link tries to address that problem.

With the Family Link app, parents can give their kids regular smartphones – not restricted models – and simply monitor their access remotely with their own smartphones. They can approve or deny app downloads, see what apps their kids are using the most, set a bed time that locks the phone down, and more.

What works the best about all of this is that your kid gets a fully-featured smartphone, just like you have. They can feel like an adult, and you can allow them access to content that would otherwise be blocked on a limited device. It’s all up to you.

A big part of Family Link’s mission is to provide transparency between parent and child. Let your kid know what you’re not allowing and why you’re not allowing it, rather than just have everything swept up in one big block. You should be able to decide what your kid can and can’t access, not some phone manufacturer. Family Link lets you do that.