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Whether you let your 5-year-old borrow your Amazon Fire tablet to watch Bluey on long car rides or you just bought your independent 13-year-old their very own device, setting up parental controls is a must. Depending on how old your child is, there are a couple of different options for blocking certain features on the tablet.
Setting up a child profile or parental controls can help you feel less anxious when your kids are using the Fire tablets unsupervised. It's also a great way to prevent your teens from accessing age-inappropriate content like R-rated movies on Prime Video, and keeps your toddlers from snapping a thousand pictures of the ceiling while you chase them down the hallway for bedtime.
We'll walk you through how to create a child profile, as well as how to set up parental controls on your kid's Fire tablet so you can have some peace of mind. And if you're still trying to decide which tablet to buy, Yahoo's Rick Broida says the Amazon Fire HD 8 is an amazing budget tablet, and the Fire 8 HD Plus is even better.
If your kid is under the age of 13, you'll want to set up a child profile. With younger children, setting up a child profile is more beneficial because it allows you to have more control over what your kid does on the tablet — for instance, limiting screen time and viewing their browsing history. Here's what Amazon lets you manage once you create their profile.
You can limit screen time and set age filters to avoid kids from accessing age-inappropriate content.
Activity reports can be sent to you (when you enable Amazon Kids) to know what your kid has been up to.
You can add or remove content — for instance, you can add kid-friendly books.
Turn off in-app purchases so they can't buy everything a game suggests.
Manage certain web content access to keep them off unsuitable websites.
You can see which websites your child has been spending time on.
You can control access to the camera and photo gallery — for instance so they aren't sharing pictures with strangers or using all the storage by taking too many photos.
Set a lock screen password so your kid only has access to their personal profile.
When you're ready to give your kid access to your tablet (or their own), make sure you have a child profile set up first. This will help make the tablet more kid-friendly and prevent them from accessing age-inappropriate content, and can keep a tap-happy child from spending $600 on random in-app purchases (you're welcome).
To create a child profile for your little one, per Amazon, open your tablet and go to the Settings menu. From here, you're going to select Profiles & Family Library to add a child profile. If you have multiple children, you can create a profile for each with their name and other information — note that you're limited to four child profiles.
Once their profile is set up, Amazon says you can manage the parental controls by either using the "Child settings" on their tablet, or through the Parent Dashboard. To manage the child profile, tap on the Grownups icon at the top right corner of the screen, select Settings and enter your passcode.
You can also set up a child profile on the Amazon Kids app instead and you'll still be able to choose what they have access to. If you do this, you can access the child settings by simply tapping the Options icon next to your child’s name.
Don't worry about what your kids are doing on their Fire tablet when you have parental controls set up. (Amazon)
When you enable parental controls on your Fire tablet for your kid who is 13 or older, you can restrict access to a number of features. But be aware that even if you do set up these controls, it won't remove any mature or adult-rated content from the tablet. That content can still be found in Apps and Games, Music, Books and in Amazon store search results.
Once enabled, Amazon lets you restrict access to web browsing to avoid sites not suitable for young ones. You can also disable access apps like Email, Contacts and Calendar. If your teen is a shopaholic, you can prevent them from shopping on the Amazon Store and Shop apps.
If you're uncomfortable with any movies or shows on Prime Video, you can restrict your teen's viewing access. But note that you can set up a kid's Prime Video profile so they can still watch family-friendly shows. Just make sure to lock any adult profiles you have set up.
Other things you might want to disable for safety reasons are the camera and location-based services.
To restrict access to the above features on your kid's tablet, you'll need to open the Quick Settings, Amazon says, by swiping down twice from the top of the tablet's screen. From here, you should see the Settings icon which you'll need to tap to get to the Profile and Parental Controls.
You should now see a button that says "Restrict access to current profile," that you'll toggle on to enable the parental settings. It'll then ask you to enter your password (so your kid can't easily go back in the settings to switch parental controls off) and you'll tap Finish to confirm.
When parental controls are enabled, a lock icon will appear at the top of the screen. So if you glance over at the tablet while your teen is using it and the icon has magically disappeared, you'll know it's time to change your password and start over.
If you've got a young toddler who can't keep their hands off the touchscreen while watching shows and constantly leaves the app, there's a solution. It's called App Pinning (compliments to this TikTok user) and it lets you disable the touchscreen while your child is using your tablet.
To enable it, go to your settings, search App Pinning and turn it on. Next, open the app you want your toddler to use — for instance, Disney+ — and click the drop-down icon on the screen to pin the app. A pop-up box will open and once you tap "Got it," a countdown timer will appear. Before the timer's up, make sure you tap play on the video because once it runs down, tapping the screen will no longer work.
To unlock the screen, you'll have to swipe up from the bottom of the screen and tap the triangle and square buttons at the same time.
Note that this option may not be available on all Fire tablets.
Once you've set up a child profile or parental controls, you can manage what your kid does and doesn't have access to. This includes shopping and in-app purchases.
To turn off purchases, select the parent menu on the top right of your tablet. When you select Settings from the menu, it'll take you to the Amazon Kids Parent Dashboard where you can manage their access.
To switch between your profile and your kid's profile, go to the parent menu on the right (the icon looks like two people). From here, you'll have the option to switch to a different profile — in this case, it'll be your child's profile. Note that you'll always have to enter your password to go between profiles so your kid can't easily leave the one they're on.
