Setting up parental control and guided access are the fundamental steps to let your children use the iPad. Here's how to do it
Not a few parents are forced to pay hundreds, if not thousands of euros, because of their children, guilty of having made, without the knowledge of mom and dad, purchases on the App Store. It would be better to configure the tablet produced by Apple before delivering it in their hands.
Letting a child freely use the iPad is very risky. And not only from the economic point of view. There are several dangers hiding among the many apps and on the web. The young user, in fact, could be exposed to violent content or, in any case, not suitable for his age. And the consequences, on the psychological front, could be very dangerous indeed. And not only. Children, as it is known, do not know limits. They would stay with their eyes glued to the screen - in truth, so do adults - for many hours. And even in this case the effects are harmful: sleep deprivation is one of the most common repercussions.
What to do? There are a few small steps you can take to make the iPad very safe, so moms and dads don't have to deal with unpleasant surprises and their kids don't fall into unpleasant dangers.
Enable Guided Access
One of the main things you can do to protect your kids is to limit iPad use to a single app. This way, children will not be able to "wander" freely on the tablet. To activate the feature we need to go first to "Settings" then to "Accessibility" and finally to "Guided Access". Here we'll have to enable the service and choose a PIN code. Then all we'll have to do is launch the app and quickly press the Home button three times. At this point the session is active. To disable the security feature, and exit the app, simply enter the unlock code selected earlier.
Set Parental Control
Another very useful system to make the iPad safe is to enable Parental Control, through which you can block certain apps or other dangerous content. Also in this case the procedure is very simple. Open the "Settings" of your iPad and click once again on "General" and then on "Restrictions". Choose a PIN code. Next, select which apps and content to block. You will be able to prevent access to Siri, the camera, Safari, iTunes and much more, including even in-app purchases, by blocking the App Store.
How to prevent apps from being uninstalled
If you don't turn on parental control, it is very likely that your child will delete some apps as well. As seen above, activating parental control is very simple, but to prevent apps from being uninstalled you need to take one more step. After going into Settings and tapping on General, you need to tap on Restrictions. At this point, if parental control is not active, you'll have to tap on Enable restrictions and enter the parental control code twice. Once you've completed this step, you'll have to scroll down until you find the item Delete app and activate it: in this way the child will have to know the password chosen by the parent to be able to continue the action.
The tips mentioned so far make the iPad safer. But remember that the most effective action is to keep an eye on your child while they're connected to the Internet. Always.