TikTok parental controls: Manage screen time, privacy, and more

With countries like Australia banning social media for teens and others like the UK considering the same, you might be wondering whether you can limit your teen’s exposure to inappropriate content and excessive TikTok use right now. Luckily, TikTok parental controls are pretty in-depth and reasonably easy to set up.

You can link your accounts through the app’s Family Pairing feature and set daily time limits, make your child’s account private, disable comments and direct messages, restrict certain features, filter videos by keyword, or even block the app from running.

Below, we’ll provide step-by-step guides with screenshots for every TikTok parental control option available. We’ll also cover some cases where parental controls might not work properly, and what you can do to fix them.

What do TikTok parental controls do?

TikTok parental controls let you manage how your child uses the app. Through the built-in Family Pairing feature, parents can:

• Set screen time limits and view a summary of their usage time
• Filter content by keyword
• Manage account visibility and discoverability
• Control messages and privacy settings
• Block accounts on behalf of their teen
• Restrict certain features such as search, comments, Duets, Stitches, going LIVE, gifting on LIVE, and others.
• Block access to the app at any time.

These controls help protect your child against common TikTok scams, cyberbullying, dangerous viral trends and challenges, unwanted contact from strangers with harmful intentions, and other dangers present on the platform.

Further reading: Is TikTok safe? What you need to know

How to turn on parental controls on TikTok

Have both your devices handy and follow the steps below to enable Family Pairing and access TikTok’s parental control settings:

1. Open TikTok and sign in to your accounts if you haven’t already.
2. Tap your profile icon on the bottom-right.
3. Press the menu icon on the top-right and select Settings and privacy.
4. Tap Family Pairing and press Continue.
5. Select Parent or Teen on your respective devices and tap Next.
6. Tap Share a QR code and scan it using your child’s device. Press Done when ready.
7. Press Link accounts > Link on your teen’s phone.

Once your accounts are linked, you have plenty of options to make your child’s experience safer. To start off, here’s how to limit TikTok screen time.

How to set time limits on TikTok

You can change the default 60-minute time limit for teens aged 13-17, or even block them from using the app, using these steps:

1. Tap on your profile icon, then the menu button on the top-right, and choose Settings and privacy.
2. Select Family Pairing and then your child’s account.
3. Tap Screen time, ensure Daily screen time is toggled on, then press the similarly named option below it to change the limit.
4. The menu that pops up also includes the Block teen from app toggle if you want to give them some time off from scrolling.
5. Either way, scroll down and press Confirm to apply your changes.

Note that screen time limits prevent your teen from bypassing the restriction by logging out or switching accounts.

Making the account private and limiting who can find it

Here’s what to do if you don’t want strangers seeing your child’s posts or having their account appear in people’s suggestions:

1. Navigate to Settings and privacy as before.
2. Go to Family Pairing and select your child’s account.
3. Tap Privacy and safety to proceed.
4. Toggle on Private account so only followers you approve can view your child’s profile and videos. Teen accounts aged 13-17 are set to private by default.
5. Turn off Suggest your teen’s account to others so their account isn’t recommended to phone contacts, Facebook friends, or mutual connections on TikTok. This setting is off by default for teens between ages 13 and 15.

Manage direct messages, comments, and mentions

You can’t read your child’s DMs through Family Pairing, but you can turn them off entirely to avoid unwanted interactions with strangers. Similarly, you can limit comments and mentions to friends only, or disable them as needed. Here’s how:

1. Go to Settings and privacy > Family pairing.
2. Choose your teen’s profile and tap Privacy and safety.
3. Tap on Who can send direct messages to your teen, then press Potential connections.
4. Choose Don’t receive, then tap Update settings in the prompt. This will disable DMs from anyone on TikTok, including connections.
5. Head back to Privacy and safety, and tap Who can comment on your teen’s videos. Choose Friends or No one, as you prefer.
6. Repeat step 5 for the Who can mention your teen option.

Turn TikTok Restricted Mode on or off

Restricted Mode limits content that may not be suitable for children, such as profanity, violence, suggestive content, and so on. It also prevents teens from logging out or switching accounts. Follow these steps to turn the feature on or off:

1. Tap your profile icon, then the menu button on the top-right, and pick Settings and privacy.
2. Press Family Pairing and select your child’s profile.
3. Tap Privacy and safety, then Content preferences.
4. Select Restricted Mode and then Turn on for @childaccount. You can also turn off the feature from here.

The feature uses automation and user reports to block inappropriate content from your child’s feed, but it’s not perfect. Fortunately, you can filter content by keyword in case the system misses anything.

Filter TikTok content by keyword

Use these steps to block specific keywords on your teen’s feed:

1. Tap the profile icon, the menu on the top right, then Settings and privacy.
2. Go to Family pairing > your teen’s account.
3. Tap Content preferences > Filter keywords.
4. Press Get started in the next prompt.
5. You can select several categories of keywords to filter out, such as violence, mature humor, and so on. Check the boxes you want and press Add.
6. Afterwards, you can press the Add keyword button to insert your own, separate from the curated lists provided by TIkTok.
7. Check which feeds you want your filters to apply to, which include For You, Following, LIVE, or Friends.
8. Press Save on the top right to apply your changes.

How to block accounts on TikTok

Family Pairing allows you to block accounts on your teen’s behalf, and see their blocklist as well. See how below:

1. Access Settings and privacy as before.
2. Tap Family sharing and select your child’s profile.
3. Go to Manage blocked accounts and tap Got it.
4. Press Block accounts and use the search bar to find and block users.
5. You can also go to Teen blocked to see accounts your child blocked on their own.

Turn off personalized ads

While not part of TikTok’s standard parental controls, you should turn off ad personalization to prevent TikTok from using your child’s on- and off-platform activity for targeted ads. On your child’s device, follow these steps:

1. Tap the profile icon, then the menu button (top-right).
2. Select Settings and privacy.
3. Scroll down and press Ads.
4. Toggle off Personalized ads.
5. Tap Clear off-TikTok data to remove anything advertisers might have gathered about your child’s activity.

Ad personalization is automatically disabled for teen users (ages 13-17) in Europe.

How to turn off Family Pairing on TikTok

If your child turned 18 or feel like they can use the app responsibly on their own, you can unlink your devices like this:

1. Go to Settings and privacy > Family pairing.
2. Select your teen’s account.
3. Press Unlink on the bottom.
4. Tap Unlink again to confirm your choice.

This will disable parental controls, so you’ll have to link your accounts again if you want to manage their TikTok settings later on.

TikTok parental controls not working? Here’s what to check

Noticed your teen scrolling TikTok after hours, watching content they shouldn’t be seeing, or using features they shouldn’t have access to? Here’s why parental controls may not be working.

You linked the wrong account

If your teen has multiple accounts, Family Pairing only applies to the one that was actually linked. And not to point fingers, but the number of “I gave my family a fake account” TikTok video thumbnails I’ve noticed while researching this was… concerningly high.

The account has incorrect age information

Normally, features like the TikTok Shop are restricted to 18+ accounts. But if your teen entered an older age when signing up, they may still have access to age-restricted features despite any parental controls in place.

Related: How to avoid TikTok Shop scams

TikTok says this is by design, and there’s no way to check an account’s age information through the app settings. If you can’t get rid of a troublesome feature, you may need to contact TikTok support about it. Alternatively, you can create a new account for your teen with the correct age info, then link that one via Family Pairing.

Your teen uninstalled TikTok

Screen time limits and Restricted Mode can prevent your teen from logging out and using a different account. However, they won’t stop them from uninstalling the app and reinstalling it to create or use a different account.

If you suspect this to be the case, we recommend using device-level controls (e.g., iOS Screen Time, Google Family Link) or third-party parental control software like Qustodio. That way, you can set up app store restrictions to prevent your child from reinstalling apps like TikTok.

The limitations of keyword filters

While TikTok relies on user reports and AI to identify and moderate potentially inappropriate content, and offers its own keyword filtering system, neither are bulletproof. Keyword filters in particular depend on words appearing in the video descriptions, so some content can slip through the cracks.

If you’re worried about harmful, often outright illegal “challenges” getting past the filters, the safest approach is to:

• Browse TikTok together with your child
• Explain the dangers of imitating such behaviors without turning it into a lecture or making your teen feel judged or controlled.
• Block access to TikTok altogether if necessary.

TikTok parental controls FAQs

Also read:

• How to bypass TikTok age verification
• Protecting children’s privacy online: a guide for parents
• How to access TikTok from anywhere
• How to access TikTok Shop from anywhere