One of the perks of your child getting their first phone is the peace of mind of being able to find them if ever you need to. With a phone in their pocket and a carefully chosen kids' mobile plan, your child will always be in contact with you and vice versa. But if they have a smartphone as an added security measure, parents can also use apps to find their phone's location.
How do I find my kid's iPhone?
You've probably heard of iPhone's Find My Phone function, which can help track down iPhones if they're lost or stolen. If your child has an iPhone, you can use your phone to locate them with the Find My Friends app.
If you're going to set this up, the first thing you'll want to do is make sure parental control features are activated on your child's iPhone. Do this by going to Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions then choosing your desired settings here like allowing Share My Location.
Next, you'll need to make sure the Find My app is installed on both your iPhone and your child's iPhone. After you've done that, follow these steps on your child's iPhone:
- Open the Settings app, tap your child's name, then Family Sharing.
- Tap Share My Location.
- Tap your name and the name of any other family members you want your child's location to be shared with.
- Go to Settings > Screen Time.
- Turn on Screen Time.
- Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions and then lock the settings for Share My Location. This will prevent your child from disabling location sharing.
You'll now be able to use Find My on your iPhone to see where your child's iPhone is.
If you have Find My enabled on your child's iPhone, you'll also be able to access the Find My iPhone functionality for the device. This lets you see the location of the device, play a sound on the device to help you find it, put it in Lost Mode (which locks the device, disables Apple, and can display a custom message) and even wipe it if you cannot recover it.
To set up Find My, check out the instructional video below from our friends at WhistleOut US.
How do I find my kid's Android phone?
If your child has an Android phone, you'll find that an app like Find My is not automatically installed. But there are plenty for you to choose from in the Google Play Store. You can choose a specialist child locator app or a parental control app that includes a child locator feature.
The advantage of choosing a parental control app is that you get additional features like the ability to limit screen time and restrict apps. Here are a few parental control apps we know about that include a child locator feature:
- Family Link – this free app from Google allows you to implement parental controls for a child up to age 13. As well as monitoring your child's location, you can approve apps your child wants to download from the Google Play Store, manage screen time and set a device bedtime. You can also lock your child's device or hide apps remotely if it's school time, study time, or time to sleep.
- Qustodio – this app will monitor your child's location and also allows you to block apps, set app and screen time limits, filter inappropriate content from web browsing, monitor text messages and get a weekly report on your child's phone usage and monitor your child's location. Unlike Google and Apple versions, it also has a panic button, which alerts select trusted contacts if your child is in danger.
The app has a Basic version costing $82.95 per year ($6.91 per month) and a premium version priced at $149.95 per year ($12.50 per month). Qustodia is also available on iPhones, iPads, Kindles, Macbooks, Chromebooks and Windows.
If you don't want to use this level of parental controls on your child's phone, a simple family locator app might be more appropriate.
Two we know about, Life360 and Find My Kids, both have free versions and offer real-time location information about any phone you have permission to track including, but not limited to, your child's. These apps also alert you when family members arrive or leave preselected destinations like school or home and track phone battery levels so you know if your child's phone is dead or if they're just not responding.
You can install any of these apps by downloading them from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. Just make sure you download them on your phone as well as your child's.
Find my phone for kids FAQs
How can I locate my child's lost phone?
How you locate a child's lost phone depends on what model it is - Apple, Android etc. The most common is to use apps like Find My on iPhones and Find My Device on Android devices and sign into their phone's account to locate it.
How do I control my child's iPhone from mine?
Controlling your child's iPhone from your own is easily done by setting up Family Sharing. From there you can remotely control settings on your child's phone, for example, setting screen time limits.
How do I search for a lost Samsung phone?
Samsung's built-in device, Find My Mobile works the same as Find My does for Apple devices. However, your Samsung device needs to have enabled 'allow this phone to be found' in order to search for it.
Jacqui Dent
Editorial Strategist
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