How to set up an Android phone for a child

An Android phone you’ve stopped using makes a good first phone — as long as it’s set up for a child, not handed over as it was. Google’s way to do that is Family Link: your child gets a Google Account that you supervise, and you manage their phone from your own, whether that’s an Android phone or an iPhone.

Before you start

You’ll need:

• Your own phone with the Google Family Link app. It works on Android phones and iPhones.
• The old Android phone, charged and on Wi-Fi. Google recommends Android 7.0 or later.
• About half an hour. Most of it is the phone erasing and restarting.

Family Link works for teenagers as well as younger children. Until they’re 18, your child needs your approval to stop supervision.

Family Link gives your child a Google Account. That account belongs to the phone and its parental controls — Shoal doesn’t use it. Shoal itself still needs no account, email address or phone number for your child.

1. Create your child’s Google Account

Open Family Link on your phone, add a child, and follow the prompts to create a Google Account for them. Google asks for their name and date of birth, and you agree to supervise the account as their parent.

If your child is older and already has a Google Account, you don’t need a new one: add supervision to their existing account from Family Link instead. They’ll be asked to agree to it.

2. Erase the old phone

Copy off any photos or files you want to keep. If it was your phone, remove your Google account from it first (in Settings, under Accounts or Passwords & accounts), and on a Samsung phone your Samsung account too. Otherwise the phone may ask for those passwords again after it’s erased.

Then erase it. On many phones it’s Settings → System → Reset options → Erase all data (factory reset). Menus vary by manufacturer — on Samsung phones, for example, it’s under General management → Reset.

If it’ll be Wi-Fi only, take the SIM out now. A data-only SIM is the other option if they’ll use it out of the house.

3. Sign your child in

When the phone restarts, follow the setup screens and, when asked for a Google Account, sign in with your child’s account. You’ll then be asked to sign in as their parent to approve it and turn on supervision.

If you’d rather not erase the phone, you can add supervision to a phone that’s already set up: sign your child in, then go to Settings → Google → All services → Parental controls. Erasing first is cleaner, because nothing from the phone’s old life is left on it.

4. Set the limits in Family Link

Everything from here is done in Family Link on your phone.

• Google Play: require your approval before your child can download apps. (Approval doesn’t cover updates to apps you’ve already approved.)
• Chrome: block it, so they can’t browse the web. Block the Google app too, as its search opens web pages.
• Everything else: block any other apps they don’t need — Gmail, for example, if you don’t want them to have email. Blocked apps disappear from their phone.

You don’t need Family Link’s screen-time limits for messaging: Shoal’s own active hours decide when chat is open, and they’re on by default for every new child.

5. Add Shoal

If you haven’t already, set Shoal up on your own phone first: create your family and add your child by name. How it works walks through that part.

Then, on your child’s phone:

1. Open Google Play, find Shoal and request it. Approve the request in Family Link.
2. Open Shoal and sign in as yourself, not your child: enter your own email address, then type in the 6-digit code Shoal emails you. It arrives on your phone. Don’t use “Continue with Google” here — on this phone it would pick your child’s Google account.
3. When Shoal asks what the device is for, choose Set this up as a family device and give it a name, like “Theo’s phone”.

Your child then taps their own name to start. They can message the family and friends you’ve approved, and nobody else.