Which apps should I allow?

The list

Pick an age. Everything below is drawn from the same plan the agreement generator and the app use — one source, so the answers cannot drift apart.

Free and printable. Your child's name and birthday stay in your browser and are not saved anywhere.

Why the tool cannot answer this

Google Family Link, Apple Screen Time and the carriers' own apps are switches. They are good switches: they can require your approval before an app installs, hold a contact list, cap hours, and report what happened. What none of them contains is an opinion about what a nine-year-old should be allowed to do — and reasonably so, because that is not a software question.

The result is a notification that asks you to approve Roblox, with no way to answer it except instinct and whatever your child said about their friends.

So the searching parent gets sent in a circle. The tool's own help pages explain how to turn the control on. The review sites compare which control app is best. The forums are full of parents asking each other the actual question. Almost nothing tells you what to put in the switch.

The decision is not the app. It is what the app lets them do

App by app is the wrong unit, and it is why these decisions feel arbitrary. "Is Roblox okay?" has no answer, because Roblox with chat on and Roblox with chat off are two different products that share an icon. Same for Minecraft, same for Fortnite, same for YouTube and YouTube Kids.

Decide the capability instead, once, and the apps sort themselves:

• Calls with people you both chose Voice and video calls to and from a contact list both sides agree on. Nobody outside the list can reach the phone.
• Camera Taking photos and video, stored on the phone. Sending them comes later.
• Clock, maps, notes, calculator, music on the phone Alarm and timer, calculator, maps, notes, and music already on the device.
• Texting people on your list Text messages with the same approved contacts, one to one. No group chats, no strangers.

That is the whole method, and the full table of every app by age is the same data laid out the other way round. Each app page explains one decision in depth: WhatsApp, Roblox, Discord, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.

Every control needs an end date

This is the part that is missing everywhere else. Every guide on the internet tells you how to switch supervision on. Try finding one that tells you when to switch it off.

It matters more than it sounds. A fifteen-year-old whose parent still approves every app install is not being kept safe; they are being handed a reason to get a second phone you do not know about. Supervision without an expiry date stops being protection and becomes the thing your child routes around — and the moment they route around it, you lose the only safety mechanism that actually works, which is them telling you when something goes wrong.

A control your child knows the end date of is a rule. A control with no end date is a dare.

So each one above comes with the age it ends, written down in advance, in the agreement you both sign. You can move any of those ages — they are this plan's suggestion, not a finding — but move them on purpose and say so out loud, rather than letting them quietly run until someone has a fight about it.

What these tools cannot do, whatever you set

None of this is an argument against using the controls. It is an argument for not mistaking them for the plan. The switch enforces a decision; it does not make one, and it cannot cover the places where the decision matters most.

Put it in writing, with the dates

A decision nobody wrote down is a decision you will have again in three weeks, with worse temper. The list above becomes an agreement you both sign, with each app's date and each control's end date in it.

Free and printable. Nothing is saved anywhere.

Questions parents ask

What apps should I allow on Family Link?

Family Link decides whether an app installs; it does not decide whether your child is ready for what the app does. Sort by capability rather than by app: calls and texts with an agreed contact list come first, then games without chat and video from a chosen list, then the open web, then group chats and open messaging, then — last — a social platform. On this plan that puts Messages and Netflix around 10, Roblox and Minecraft with chat off around 10 and with chat on at 12, WhatsApp and YouTube at 13, and Instagram, Snapchat or TikTok at 14. Those ages are a suggestion your family can move; the order is the part worth keeping.

Should a 14 year old have parental controls?

Some of them, and fewer than a ten-year-old. On this plan, approving every app install and holding the contact list end at 13; seeing which group chats they are in ends at 14; the weekly usage summary ends at 15; the night rule — the phone not sleeping in the bedroom — runs to 16, because its effect on sleep is the largest of anything on the list. The useful question is not whether a 14-year-old has controls but which ones, and whether they know the date each one ends.

When should I turn parental controls off?

One at a time, on dates you agreed in advance, not all at once when there is a row about it. Supervision that never ends is the thing a teenager routes around, and a child with a phone you do not know about is in a worse position than a child with a supervised one. Write the end dates down when you write the rules, so that letting go is something you planned rather than something you lost.

Can parental controls see WhatsApp messages?

No. WhatsApp conversations are end-to-end encrypted, which means WhatsApp cannot read them and neither can any parental control app, free or paid. What a parent can control is who is able to reach the account and which groups it can join — and since 30 September 2026 a parent can hold those settings on a 13-to-17-year-old's account behind a PIN. Control of the contact list, not a copy of the conversation.

Sources

The ages on this page are Rungs' own plan — a suggestion a family can move, not a finding. Where the page states a checkable fact, it is sourced here.

• Google — Manage apps on your child's device with Family LinkThat a parent can require approval before an app is installed and can block or unblock installed apps, which is the switch this page is about and the one that asks for a decision it cannot supply.
• Apple — Use parental controls on your child's iPhone or iPadThat Screen Time holds app limits, content restrictions and communication limits, set by a parent with a passcode.
• WhatsApp — Parental controlsThat parental controls for teens are for ages 13 to 17 and parent-managed accounts for pre-teens under 13, that loosening a setting needs a parent PIN, and that both are rolling out gradually and may not be available in every region.
• WhatsApp — New controls to help parents guide their teens (30 September 2026)That the teen controls cover who can add the teen to groups and who can see their profile photo, that the parent is notified when the teen joins or leaves a group, and that messages and calls stay end-to-end encrypted either way.
• eSafety Commissioner — Which social media platforms are age-restricted? (lists published 21 November 2025, assessment reconfirmed March 2026)That Pinterest, along with Discord, GitHub, Google Classroom, LEGO Play, Messenger, Roblox, Steam and Steam Chat, WhatsApp and YouTube Kids, was considered not an age-restricted social media platform in Australia, and that the restricted list is Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X and YouTube.
• Roblox — Chat settings and parental controlsThat chat can be turned off on the account, which is what makes "Roblox with chat off" a different decision from Roblox.
• Epic Games — Cabined AccountsThat for players under the age of digital consent, voice and free text chat are disabled until a parent grants them.

Pages opened and checked on 2 October 2026. How sources are handled on this site: about.