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 evenings, but she quite often finds it (she's very intelligent and sneaky). We tell her she isn't allowed to use it at night, but she seems driven to use it. So I decided to look into just shutting down her ability to use it.
I've heard from other parents that they can restrict all accesses based on time schedules (with their providers). T-Mobile doesn't seem to have that possibility. After reading through Family Allowances it seems it can solo restrict calls and messaging? That is useless for this situation.
I read this in T-Mobile's family allowances description:
Cronograma
- Puedes autorizar o bloquear el uso de dispositivos de tu hijos (líneas administradas) durante periodos de tiempo predefinidos, por ejemplo cuando están en la escuela (9 a.m. a 2 p.m.), mientras hacen la tarea o cenan (4 a 9 p.m.) o cuando deberían estar durmiendo (9 a 11 p.m. y 11 p.m. a 6 a.m.).
This indeed makes it sound like the "device" can be restricted, but this appears to be an outright lie based on everything else in the description. Everything else only talks about calls and messaging. Blocking the use of their "device" would mean everything can be blocked, not just calls and messaging.
Does T-Mobile have the ability to "allow or bloquear when your children (managed lines) can use their devices" as described, or are they far behind other carriers in this area?
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.
Old thread but
What this person was looking for is what's called today "family mode" from T-Mobile apps. It cost an additional $10 per month also.
You can limit specific apps on managed phones.
Also you can limit those apps specifically on iphones as well. With passwords. Never gave your child the Apple ID password solves a lot of problems.
Further, if you don't want your child use your phone at night, just take the phone away and put it in your bedroom by your bed. Under your mattress if you have to!
You're not supposed to be your child's friend ...do what they need. Be the parent.
I just got a phone a couple of weeks ago for my 12 year old grandson. When I asked them at the store how to set up the parental controls they told me to just google it. I have set up family mode which I have to pay 10.00 a month for and then I had to call them to add family allowances. I kept getting an error message every time I tried to put the times to limit the device. I tried both the app and the website. I called back several times and they could not figure it out. It would not save the changes for them either. I finally got someone that was able to get the times put in and save it. They told me the app would not work with that feature. I can look on the website and my app and see that the times have been saved but it is still allowing calls and texts to come through during the blocked times. I still get an error when I try to set up the web guard. I was on hold for almost an hour this morning before I was able to talk to someone and then after they still could not figure it out they were going to send me to tech but disconnected me instead. I have probably spent over 6 hours on the phone in the last two trying to get this resolved.
