Handing a child a tablet feels like handing them the keys to the entire internet — because it is. The good news is that every major tablet platform now ships with genuinely good parental controls built in, free of charge. Setting up parental controls on a child’s tablet properly takes about twenty minutes, and it’s the difference between a safe, age-appropriate device and an unfiltered portal to everything you’d rather your eight-year-old didn’t see. Here’s how to do it right on each platform, plus the conversations that matter more than any filter.

Parental controls child’s tablet: iPad (Apple Screen Time)

Apple’s Screen Time is the most comprehensive built-in system, and it’s already on the iPad:

  1. Go to Settings > Screen Time and turn it on, choosing “This is My Child’s iPad”.
  2. Set a Screen Time passcode — different from the device passcode, and not your child’s birthday. This locks the settings so they can’t be changed without you.
  3. Under Content & Privacy Restrictions, set age-appropriate limits: block explicit music and podcasts, restrict apps to age ratings (9+, 12+, etc.), filter web content to “Limit Adult Websites”, and restrict Siri web search.
  4. Use App Limits to cap categories (an hour of games, say) and Downtime to block everything except calls and chosen apps during bedtime hours.
  5. Turn on Ask to Buy — every app download, even free ones, then needs your approval. This single setting prevents both surprise purchases and sneaky app installs.
  6. In Communication Safety (a genuinely excellent feature), the iPad blurs nudity in Messages and gives the child a safe way to get help — turn it on for under-13s without hesitation.

If the iPad is signed into your Apple ID, create a child account in Family Sharing instead — it keeps their data separate and gives you remote management from your own iPhone.

Amazon Fire tablet (Kids+ / parental dashboard)

Fire tablets are the most popular kids’ tablets in the UK for good reason — they’re cheap, tough, and the parental controls are superb:

  • Amazon Kids creates a walled-garden profile with age-filtered content, no social media, no in-app purchases without approval, and no web browser unless you enable it. For under-8s, this alone is sufficient.
  • The Parent Dashboard (parents.amazon.co.uk) lets you set time limits, educational goals (“30 minutes of reading before games become available”), and bedtimes remotely — even when you’re not in the room.
  • For older kids, create a standard profile with parental control PIN restrictions: block the browser or enable its filter, require approval for purchases, and set a device bedtime.
  • Amazon Kids+ (£4.99/month, often bundled free for a year with Kids Edition tablets) adds thousands of books, games, and videos — genuinely good value if it replaces other subscriptions.

Android tablets (Google Family Link)

For Samsung, Lenovo, and other Android tablets, Google Family Link (free app on your phone) is the control centre:

  1. Create a Google account for your child (or add their existing one) and link it in Family Link.
  2. Set daily screen time limits and a bedtime — the tablet locks automatically, which ends the “five more minutes” negotiation with technology rather than shouting.
  3. Approve or block app installs remotely — you’ll get a notification on your phone whenever they try to download something.
  4. Turn on SafeSearch, enable Google Play’s parental controls (filter by age rating), and use Chrome’s supervised browsing or install a kid-safe browser.
  5. Set content restrictions on YouTube — or better, install YouTube Kids for younger children, which is a far safer environment than the main app.

Samsung tablets also have Samsung Kids mode, a simplified safe environment similar to Amazon Kids — worth enabling for younger children alongside Family Link.

Beyond the settings: what actually keeps kids safe

Here’s the uncomfortable truth the tech companies won’t emphasise: no filter is perfect, and determined older kids will find workarounds. The settings above are essential, but they’re the seatbelt, not the driving instructor. What matters more:

  • Keep the tablet in shared spaces for younger children — not because you’re spying, but because casual visibility is the best filter ever invented.
  • Talk about it regularly, not once. A single “internet safety talk” is as effective as a single talk about anything. Make it an ongoing, low-key conversation: what did you watch, who did you play with, did anything weird pop up?
  • Agree the rules together — bedtimes, no devices at meals, what to do if something upsetting appears (close it, tell you, no blame). Kids follow rules they helped make far better than imposed ones.
  • Model it. If the rule is no phones at dinner, it applies to you too. Painful, I know.

For age-by-age guidance on screen time that isn’t preachy, our piece on getting kids off screens without a battle is a good companion read. And if you’re still choosing the device itself, see which tablet suits an elderly parent — oddly, the simplicity priorities overlap — or our e-reader guide if reading is the main goal.

The NSPCC and Internet Matters both offer excellent, non-alarmist parent guides to each platform’s controls, kept current as the menus change — bookmark one of them for when the next OS update moves everything around.

Don’t forget the other screens in the house

The tablet is sorted — but it’s rarely the only connected screen a child uses, and the others often have weaker defaults. Gaming consoles (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch) all have parental controls worth enabling: spending limits on the PlayStation Store and Xbox, age-rated game restrictions, and — critically — controls on voice and text chat with strangers, which is where most online risk actually lives for kids. Set these up in the console’s family settings before the first gaming session, not after.

Smart TVs deserve attention too: most let you set a PIN for age-restricted apps and purchases, and YouTube on the TV defaults to the unrestricted app unless you switch profiles. If the kids watch on a shared living-room TV, create them their own profile with restrictions rather than letting them use yours. And smart speakers in kids’ bedrooms can order things, call contacts, and answer unfiltered questions — check the voice-purchasing PIN and consider the kids’ content filter in the Alexa or Google Home app. A tablet with perfect controls means little if the bedroom Echo will happily answer anything.

The practical takeaway

iPad: Screen Time + passcode + Ask to Buy + Communication Safety. Fire tablet: Amazon Kids profile + Parent Dashboard limits. Android: Family Link + SafeSearch + YouTube Kids. Whichever platform, do the twenty-minute setup before handing the tablet over (retrofitting controls onto a device a child already uses freely is ten times harder), keep devices in shared spaces for the under-10s, and remember the ongoing conversation matters more than any filter. The technology does the heavy lifting; you do the parenting.