Forum Discussion
Family Allowances seems to be some kind of joke
I'm looking into Family Allowances because I want to restrict my 10yo daughter from using her phone until early hours of the morning. She seems to be addicted. We take it away from her in the eve...
Just so I'm on the same page with you @rglaus, are you looking for something that'll block the devices built-in functions to be blocked? Nuestra Permiso familiar is designed to restrict the phone from using services on the network. Unfortunately, we don't have a feature that we offer if you're trying to block them from accessing the phone's internal features.
Having been a kid myself once, I'm going to start out by saying kids will find ways around just about anything. Nothing is going to be foolproof.
T-Mobile can help manage access to the T-Mobile network (as does any parental controls across carriers). T-Mobile's isn't flexible, and doesn't fit in everyone's needs (this is me still saying it needs to be revamped), but it "works".
But, no carrier will basically completely disable all features of a device with their parental controls. It's not feasible. A carrier network cannot control what happens on WiFi, nor vice-versa. Your two options in this case are:
- Get a home WiFi Router that has proper parental controls (I heard about one on the radio some time last year -- something tells me Disney may have been somehow affiliated with it? I don't recall the details, but there are several routers nowadays that will let you have restricted times per device). Use this in addition to T-Mobile's Parental Controls (T-Mobile controls their network, you control yours) -- This doesn't stop them from getting on the neighbor's WiFi.
- Actually be a parent and let there be consequences of the child not putting their device down when instructed to (this is hard to do, I know, but, back in my day, if I was up late playing my Nintendo, it was removed from me for a while. There are things called "Feature Phones" or "Dumb Phones" that you can swap their device out for and give them an actual alarm clock if they're not properly obeying).
There's probably apps out there that will help you restrict. But, apps are easily uninstallable (although, probably not easily reinstalled with the same parameters you set). Nothing beats being a properly involved parent who follows through with consequences.
