Parental Control for iPhone

I have been a mom for almost 3 years, and in that time I have been in many situations where I need a quick way to entertain my boys.

Enter the iPhone---> handy little babysitter, isn't it? It has come to my aid on so many occasions! From being trapped in an exam room without pants (or underwear on) with an 17 month old who isn't strapped into a stroller *gasps* or standing in a long line at the grocery store while the eldest child is beating up the youngest child who cannot yet defend himself, and the list goes on!

I cannot believe I have existed this long without knowing about this little nugget of information!

Apple has created what could possibly be named the best invention known to man, but handing it over to a small child can cause some major problems without these Parental controls activated!

Without parental controls its possible for your child to Facetime your best friend at 6 AM while you are in the shower; they could turn off Find iPhone, thus resulting in hours of searching for your phone; they could hide your email app that you will be unable to find for days and without someone else's assistance; they could delete all of your notes on your notepad app- which included all of your log-ins and passwords and perhaps even the note that you kept in lieu of a baby book that contained everything that your child had done since their birth, from the time when they first rolled over, to their first word and the dates of these monumental moments! All GONE with one swipe of a button!

Yes- all of these things have happened to me and it all could have been prevented if someone would have told me about these simple little parental controls. Apple created Guided Access, which allows you to lock your child onto a screen and they will be unable to Facetime anyone, delete important information, or prevent them from turning the volume up so that an entire waiting room doesn't have to rock out to the theme song from Daniel Tigers Neighborhood!

So hang with me...
These are the steps:
-Go to your Settings App.

-Click on General.

-Click on Accessibility.

-Scroll down until you see Guided Access (it will be the second one up from the bottom) and slide the switch to on.

YOU AREN'T DONE YET...

-After you slide the switch to on, you will need to create a 6 digit passcode (you will only have to do all of this once).

-After you set a passcode, enable Accessibility Shortcuts

** And now you are all ready to go!

When you want to enable Guided Access, simply enter an app that you are using for your child and triple click your home button. Triple clicking the home button will allow you to circle the areas on your screen that you’d like to disable. I circle play and pause buttons, ads, and volume sliders just to name a few!

The home button will be disabled automatically. When you want to exit Guided Access you simply triple click your home button again and type in your 6 digit passcode.

Voila! I <3 you Apple!

Now just get yourself a good sturdy case and you are good to hand it over!
Hope this helps-
XOXO,
Molly

I would love to hear from you! If this post helped, please feel free to leave a comment for me!