How to Implement Parental Controls on Facebook for Child Safety

Facebook offers several tools to help parents ensure their children’s online experience is secure and appropriate. Owned by Meta, Facebook provides a robust platform with various privacy and security features. This guide will focus on the essential steps to set up effective parental controls on your child’s Facebook account.
Initial Security Measures
Before adjusting the parental controls, review the account security settings with your child. It’s crucial that they understand the importance of not sharing personal information and only adding people they know personally. Ensure you have their login credentials and enable two-factor authentication to keep their account secure.
Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Parental Controls
Step 1: Review Privacy Settings Access the Privacy Check-up by navigating to “Settings & Privacy” and then selecting “Privacy Check-up.” This tool helps you manage who can contact your child and view their posts and personal information.
Step 2: Manage Content Visibility Control what your child can see and share on Facebook by adjusting settings for Posts and Stories. You can set visibility to “Friends” to ensure only known contacts can view their posts, or “Public” if appropriate. Additionally, prevent others from tagging your child in posts and stories by setting tags to “No one.”
Step 3: Limit Personal Information Adjust the visibility of personal details on your child’s profile to be visible to only friends or just you as the parent. This helps keep sensitive information private.
Step 4: Block Unwanted Interactions If there are specific accounts that pose a risk or are undesirable, use the “Blocking” section under Settings & Privacy to prevent these accounts from contacting your child or seeing their posts.
Step 5: Restrict Friend Requests To avoid unwanted friend requests, you can set the friend request privacy to “Friends of Friends” or “Only Me,” making your child’s profile less visible.
Step 6: Regulate App and Game Access Facebook connects to numerous third-party apps and games, which may not be suitable for children. Control which apps and games your child can use by adjusting the settings in the App Controls section.
Step 7: Monitor Interactions and Content Regularly check your child’s Newsfeed to monitor the content they are exposed to. Unfollow or report any inappropriate content to keep their feed safe.
Continuing the Conversation on Online Safety
Besides technical settings, it’s vital to maintain open communication with your child about online safety. Discuss the importance of privacy and the reasons behind the settings you’ve implemented. Being proactive and involved in your child’s online activities helps build trust and ensures they have a positive and safe experience on Facebook.
By following these steps, you can create a safer Facebook environment for your child and give yourself peace of mind about their online interactions.
Are these steps enough?
Although following the above guideline is a good start, it is most probably not enough and we certainly are suggesting making use of appropriate parental control apps.
2 thoughts on “How to Implement Parental Controls on Facebook for Child Safety”
This guide is a must-read for any parent navigating their child’s online presence! The step-by-step breakdown makes it so much easier to understand Facebook’s security features. It’s great to see how important privacy settings and monitoring can be in keeping our kids safe. Totally agree that parental control apps add an extra layer of protection – a solid combo for peace of mind. Thanks for putting this together!
Hi Pierre, Thank you for your feedback! We’re glad you found the guide helpful. Keeping children safe online is our top priority, and it’s great to hear that the step-by-step instructions make things easier. You’re absolutely right – parental control apps are a fantastic addition to these settings. Feel free to reach out if you have any further questions or need recommendations for apps that can complement Facebook’s built-in features!