Instagram having over 5B downloads tells how popular the social media app is. Your kids may be on this app, and you might want to monitor their activities. Fortunately, Instagram has a parental control feature that allows parents to supervise their kids on Instagram. In addition, parents can use the feature to give extra support to their teen on how to navigate the app.
The tool to monitor Instagram on your kid’s phone is called “Supervision on Instagram.” With the tool, you can set a limit on when and how long your kids can use Instagram. In addition, see all the people they are connected to and those they have blocked. Once the settings are activated, your teen will need your approval before making some adjustments to their Instagram account.
We recommend enabling the Supervision feature on Instagram to help ensure your kids are not being bullied online. Also, you will know all their activities, which is expected of a parent. However, if your child is 18 and above, you will not be able to use this feature, unless they update their age. However, you can use spy apps to continue monitoring them after turning 18, but that’s a different setting.
In this post, I will focus on how to monitor Instagram on your child’s phone using the Parental Control feature in the app. It’s free and does not require special knowledge to set it up. You should be able to set it up in a few minutes if you follow the instructions below.
Things you should know about Supervision on Instagram
If you activate the parental control feature in your teen Instagram account, you will be able to do;
- Set a daily limit on when and how long they can use Instagram.
- See everyone they are connected to and those they have blocked.
- They will need your approval to change some settings on the app.
- See their search history, messages, and posts on the app.
- Get notified when your teen gets a new follower.
- See when your teen reports a post/account, including who/what was reported and the type of report.
However, if your child’s account is set to private, it might limit your influence. According to Meta, you will not see your teen’s search history, messages, or posts unless their account is public. You might want to check that before activating parental control.
How to check if an Instagram account is set to Private
- To check if your teen is using a Private Instagram account, launch the app and tap on their profile pic on the bottom right side of the screen.
- Click on the three lines in the top right corner.
- Scroll down and tap Account privacy. You will see if the account is Private or Public. To switch the Account privacy, tap on it and then tap on the toggle. Tap on the switch to the public to confirm.
How to monitor Instagram on your child’s phone using the Supervision feature
- Launch the Instagram app and click on the profile picture at the bottom right corner.
- Tap on the three lines in the top right corner.
- Scroll down and tap on Supervisor under “For Families.”
- Tap on “Get Started” and select your teen from the list available.
- Once you have selected your child’s account, tap “Invite.”
- Meanwhile, you can share the link instead, just tap on the “share the link instead” above your screen.
- Copy the link generated and send it to your teen. They have 48 hours to accept the invitation, after which it expires, and you will have to generate another one.
- Once your Teen accepts your invitation, you can complete the setup. Follow the screen instructions via Settings>>Supervision when you want to make changes to your child’s Instagram account.
Unfortunately, monitoring Instagram using the Supervision function might not work for everyone. In some countries, you are not allowed to use social media until you are 18, which automatically makes it impossible to use Instagram. Interestingly, Instagram will block your account if you do not meet the age requirements of your country of residence. Nevertheless, you can still monitor your child’s Instagram account.
If this restriction is the reason, you cannot use the supervision feature to monitor your child on Instagram, we recommend using spy apps. They not only give you access to Instagram but also other social media platforms like iMessage, WhatsApp, Facebook, Snapchat, and others.
However, you will pay a monthly or yearly subscription before downloading these apps, and some might not work on iPhones. We recommend mSpy, uMobix, and CocoSpy.
